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MDGCCXLVI. 



"P?5^e> 



•hn 



LONDON: 
AND EFANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 



48 65 55 

JUL Z o 1942 



i 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

ALASTOR ; OK, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE .... 1 

THE WITCH OF ATLAS .21 

EPIPSYCHIDION : VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND 

UNFORTUNATE LADT EMILIA V . NOW IMPRISONED 

IN THE CONVENT OF . 41 

JULIAN AND MADDALO : A CONVERSATION , . . . 58 

LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS . .76 

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY . . , . . . . 86 

ADONAIS ; AN ELEGT ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS . 100 

THE SENSITIVE PLANT 116 

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 127 

EARLY POEMS. 

IANTHE 146 

MUTABILITY 161 

ON DEATH 161 

A SUMMER-EVENING CHURCHYARD . . -] . . . 162 

LINES . . . . '. . . ' . . 163 

STANZAS . . . ..... . . . 164 

TO * * * * . . . . . ' . . . .165 

TO WORDSWORTH 167 

FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN ON THE FALL OF 
BONAPARTE 167 



vi CONTENTS. 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

PAGE 
THE SUNSET ......... 168 

HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY . . . . . 169 

MONT BLANC 172 

MARIANNE'S DREAM . 176 

TO CONSTANTIA. SINGING ...... 181 

TO CONSTANTIA 182 

ON F. G 182 

DEATH 183 

SONNET. — OZYMANDIAS 183 

LINES TO A CRITIC ........ 184 

PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES 184 

LINES 185 

ON A FADED VIOLET 185 

THE PAST 186 

TO MARY 186 

MISERY. — A FRAGMENT 187 

STANZAS, -WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES . 189 

SONNET 190 

SONG TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND 191 

LINES, WRITTEN DURING THE CASTLEREAGH ADMINIS- 
TRATION 192 

ENGLAND IN 1819 193 

AN ODE, TO THE ASSERTOR8 OF LIBERTY . . . 193 

ODE TO HEAVEN 194 

ODE TO THE WEST WIND 196 

SIMILES, FOR TWO POLITICAL CHARACTERS OF 1819 . 199 
ON THE MEDUSA OF LEONARDO DA VINCI, IN THE FLO- 
RENTINE GALLERY 200 

AN EXHORTATION 201 

TO WILLIAM SHELLEY 202 

TO WILLIAM SHELLEY 203 

A VISION OF THE SEA ....... 204 

TO 209 

the cloud 210 

love's philosophy 212 

to a skylark 213 



CONTENTS. vii 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

PAGE 

ODE TO LIBERTY 217 

HXMN OF APOLLO 226 

HYMN OF PAN 227 

ARETHUSA 228 

THE QUESTION 231 

SONG OF PROSERPINE, WHILE GATHERING FLOWERS ON 

THE PLAIN OF ENXA 232 

THE TWO SPIBITS 233 

THE WANING MOON 234 

LETTEB TO MABIA GISBOENE 235 

ODE TO NAPLES 244 

DEATH 249 

SUMMER AND WINTER 250 

A DIEGE ... 250 

THE TOWEE OF FAMINE 251 

THE WOELD'S WANDERERS 251 

AUTUMN : A DIEGE 252 

LIBEBTY . 253 

TO THE MOON 253 

AN ALLEGOEY 254 

LINES TO A REVIEWER 254 

SONNET 255 

TO NIGHT 255 

TO E * * * V * * * 256 

FROM THE ARABIC ........ 257 

TIME 257 

MUTABILITY 258 

TO . 258 

the fugitives . 259 

to 261 

song 262 

to 263 

LINES 264 

A FRAGMENT 265 

LINES WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH 

OF NAPOLEON 265 



viii CONTENTS. 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

PAGE 
LYRICS FROM THE DRAMA OF HELLAS . , . .267 

TO-MORROW 274 

A BRIDAL SONG 275 

A FRAGMENT . 275 

EVENING 276 

A LAMENT . 277 

THE BOAT, ON THE SERCHIO ...... 278 

the aziola 280 

song of beatrice cenci 281 

to 282 

GOOD-NIGHT 282 

A LAMENT 283 

LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR 283 

MUSIC 284 

to 285 

SONNET 287 

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR 287 

THE ZUCCA 288 

TO A LADY WITH A GUITAR 291 

THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER PATIENT . . . . 293 

THE INVITATION . . 295 

THE RECOLLECTION 297 

A SONG . 299 

LINES 300 

to 301 

SONG FOR TASSO 301 

THE ISLE .... ..... 302 



ALASTOR; 



THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 



Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, qua?rebam quid ama- 
rem amans amare.— Confess. St. August. 



Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood ! 
If our great Mother have imbued my soul 
With aught of natural piety to feel 
Your love, and recompense the boon with mine ; 
If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, 
With sunset and its gorgeous ministers, 
And solemn midnight's tingling silentness ; 
If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood, 
And winter robing with pure snow and crowns 
Of starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs ; 
If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes 
Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me ; 
If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast 
I consciously have injured, but still loved 
And cherished these my kindred; — then forgive 
This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw 
No portion of your wonted favour now ! 

Mother of this unfathomable world ! 
Favour my solemn song, for I have loved 
Thee ever, and thee only ; I have watched 
Thy shadow, and the darknessof thy steps, 



•2 ALASTOR ; OR, 

And my heart ever gazes on the depth 

Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed 

In charnels and on coffins, where black death 

Keeps record of the trophies won from thee, 

Hoping to still these obstinate questionings 

Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost, 

Thy messenger, to render up the tale 

Of what we are. In lone and silent hours, 

When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness, 

Like an inspired and desperate alchymist 

Staking his very life on some dark hope, 

Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks 

With my most innocent love, until strange tears, 

Uniting with those breathless kisses, made 

Such magic as compels the charmed night 

To render up thy charge : and, though ne'er yet 

Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary ; 

Enough from incommunicable dream, 

And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought, 

Has shone within me, that serenely now 

And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre 

Suspended in the solitary dome 

Of some mysterious and deserted fane, 

I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain 

May modulate with murmurs of the air, 

And motions of the forests and the sea, 

And voice of living beings, and woven hymns 

Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. 

There was a Poet whose untimely tomb 
No human hands with pious reverence reared, 
But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds 
Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid 
Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness ; 
A lovely youth, — no mourning maiden decked 
With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath, 
The lone couch of his everlasting sleep : 
Gentle, and brave, and generous, no lorn bard 
Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh : 



THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 

lie lived, he died, lie sang in solitude. 
Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes, 
And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined 
And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes. 
The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn, 
And Silence too, enamoured of that voice, 
Locks its mute music in her rugged cell. 

By solemn vision and bright silver dream, 
His infancy was nurtured. Every sight 
And sound from the vast earth and ambient air, 
Sent to Ms heart its choicest impulses. 
The fountains of divine philosophy 
Fled not his thirsting lips ; and all of great, 
Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past 
In truth or fable consecrates, he felt 
And knew. When early youth had past, he left 
His cold fireside and alienated home, 
\ To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands. -__ 
Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness 
Has lured his fearless steps ; and he has bought 
With Ins sweet voice and eyes, from savage men, 
His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps 
He, like her shadow, has pursued, where'er 
The red volcano overcanopies 
Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice 
With burning smoke : or where bitumen lakes, 
On black bare pointed islets ever beat 
With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves, 
Rugged and dark, winding among the springs, 
Of fire and poison, inaccessible 
To avarice or pride, their starry domes 
Of diamond and of gold expand above 
Numberless and immeasurable halls, 
Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines 
Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite. 
Nor had that scene of ampler majesty 
Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven 
And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims 



4 ALASTOR; OR, 

To love and wonder ; he would linger Ion" 
In lonesome vales, making the wild his home, 
Until the doves and squirrels would partake 
From his innocuous hand his bloodless food, 
I Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks, ^ 
And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er 
The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend 
Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form 
More graceful than her own. 

_, ,. His wandering step, 

Obedient to high thoughts, has visited 

The awful ruins of the days of old : 

Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste 

Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers 

Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, 

Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange 

Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, 

Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphinx, 

Dark Ethiopia on her desert hills 

Conceals. Among the mined temples there, 

Stupendous columns, and wild images 

Of more than man, where marble demons watch 

The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men 

Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, 

He lingered, poring on memorials 

Of the world's youth, through the long burning day 

Gazed on those speechless shapes, nor, when the moon 

Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades 

Suspended he that task, but ever gazed 

And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind 

Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw 

The thrilling secrets of the birth of time. 

Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food, 
Her daily portion, from her father's tent, 
And spread her matting for his couch, and stole 
From duties and repose to tend his steps ; — 
Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe 



THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 

To speak her love : — and watched his nightly sleep, 
Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips 
Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath 
Of innocent dreams arose : then, when red morn 
Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home, - 
Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned. 

The Poet wandering on, through Arabie 
And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, 
And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down 
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves, 
In joy and exultation held his way ; 
Till in the vale of Cachmire, far within 
Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine 
Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower, 
Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched 
His languid lhnbs. A vision on his sleep 
There came, a dream of hopes that never yet 
Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid 
Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones. 
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul 
Heard in the calm of thought ; its music long, 
Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held 
His inmost sense suspended in its web 
Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues. 
Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme, 
And lofty hopes of divine liberty, 
Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, 
Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood 
Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame 
A permeating fire : wild numbers then 
She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs 
Subdued by its own pathos : her fair hands 
Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp 
Strange symphony, and in their brandling veins 
The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale. 
The beating of her heart was heard to fill 
The pauses of her music, and her breath 
Tumultuously accorded with those fits 



6 ALASTOR; OR, 

Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose, 

As if her heart impatiently endured 

Its bursting burthen : at the sound he turned, 

And saw by the warm light of their own life 

Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil 

Of woven wind ; her outspread arms now bare, 

Her dark locks floating in the breath of night, 

Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips 

Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly. 

His strong heart sank and sickened with excess 

Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs, and quelled 

His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet 

Her panting bosom : — she drew back awhile, 

Then, yielding to the irresistible joy, 

With frantic gesture and short breathless cry 

Folded his frame in her dissolving arms. 

Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night 

Involved and swallowed up the vision ; sleep, 

Like a dark flood suspended in its course, 

Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain. 

Roused by the shock, he started from his trance — 
The cold white light of morning, the blue moon 
Low in the west, the clear and garish hills, 
The distinct valley and the vacant woods, \ 
Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled 
The hues of heaven that canopied his bower 
Of yesternight ? The sounds that soothed his sleep, 
The mystery and the majesty of Earth, 
The joy, the exultation ? His wan eyes 
Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly 
As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven. 
The spirit of sweet human love has sent 
A vision to the sleep of him who spurned 
Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues 
Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade ; 
He overleaps the bounds. Alas ! alas ! 
Were limbs and breath and being intertwined 
Thus treacherously ? Lost, lost, for ever lost, 



THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 7 

In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep, 

That beautiful shape ! Does the dark gate of death 

Conduct to thy mysterious paradise, 

O Sleep ? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds, 

And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake, 

Lead only to a black and watery depth, 

While death's blue vault with loathliest vapours hung, 

Where every shade which the foul grave exhales 

Hides its dead eye from the detested day, 

Conduct, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms 1 

This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart, 

The insatiate hope which it awakened, stung 

His brain even like despair. 

While daylight held 
The sky, the Poet kept mute conference 
With his still soul. At night the passion came, 
Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream, 
And shook him from his rest, and led him forth 
Into the darkness. — As an eagle grasped 
In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast 
Burn with the poison, and precipitates 
Through night and day, tempest, and calm and cloud, 
Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight 
O'er the wide aery wilderness : thus driven 
By the bright shadow of that lovely dream, 
Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night, 
Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells, 
Startling with careless step the moon-hght snake, 
He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight, 
Shedding the mockery of its vital hues 
Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on, 
Till vast Aornos, seen from Petra's steep, 
Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud ; 
Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs 
Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind 
Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on, 
Day after day, a weary waste of hours, 
Bearing within his life the brooding care 



8 ALASTOR; OR, 

That ever fed on its decaying flame. 

And now his limbs were lean ; his scattered hair, 

Sered by the autumn of strange suffering, 

Sung dirges in the wind ; his listless hand 

Hung like dead bone within its withered skin ; 

Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone 

As in a f urnace burning secretly 

From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers, 

Who ministered with human charity 

His human wants, beheld with wondering awe 

Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer, 

Encountering on some dizzy precipice 

That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind 

With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet 

Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused 

In his career : the infant would conceal 

His troubled visage in his mother's robe 

In terror at the glare of those wild eyes, 

To remember their strange light in many a dream 

Of after times ; but youthful maidens, taught 

By nature, would interpret half the woe 

That wasted him, would call him with false names 

Brother, and friend, would press his pallid hand 

At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path 

Of his departure from their father's door. 

At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore 
He paused, a wide and melancholy waste 
Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged 
His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there, 
Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds. 
It rose as he approached, and with strong wings 
Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course 
High over the immeasurable main. 
His eyes pursued its flight : — " Thou hast a home, 
Beautiful bird ! thou voyagest to thine home, 
Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck 
With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes 
Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. 



THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 

And what am I that I should linger here, 

With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes, 

Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned 

To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers 

In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven 

That echoes not my thoughts ?" A gloomy smile 

Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips. 

For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly 

Its precious charge, and silent death exposed, 

Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure, 

With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms. 

Startled by his own thoughts, he looked around : 
There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight 
Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind. 
A little shallop floating near the shore 
Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze. 
It had been long abandoned, for its sides 
Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints 
Swayed with the undulations of the tide. 
A restless impulse urged him to embark 
And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste ; 
For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves 
The slimy caverns of the populous deep. 

The day was fair and sunny : sea and sky 
Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind 
Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves. 
Following Ms eager soul, the wanderer 
Leaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloft 
On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat, 
And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea 
Like a torn cloud before the hurricane. 

As one that in a silver vision floats 
Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds 
Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly 
Along the dark and ruffled waters fled 
The straining boat. — A whirlwind swept it on, 

b 3 



10 ALASTOR ; OR, 

With fierce gusts and precipitating force, 

Through the white ridges of the chafed sea. 

The waves arose. Higher and higher still 

Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge 

Like serpents struggling hi a vulture's grasp. 

Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war 

Of wave running on wave, and blast on blast 

Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven 

With dark obliterating course, he sate : 

As if their genii were the ministers 

Appointed to conduct him to the light 

Of those beloved eyes, the Poet sate 

Holding the steady helm. Evening came on, 

The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues 

High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray 

That canopied his path o'er the waste deep ; 

Twilight, ascending slowly from the east, 

Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks 

O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day ; 

Night followed, clad with stars. On every side 

More horribly the multitudinous streams 

Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war 

Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock 

The calm and spangled sky. The little boat 

Still fled before the storm ; still fled, like foam 

Down the steep cataract of a wintry river ; 

Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave ; 

Now leaving far behind the bursting mass 

That fell, convulsing ocean. Safely fled — 

As if that frail and wasted human form 

Had been an elemental god. 

At midnight 
The moon arose : and lo ! the ethereal cliffs 
Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone 
Among the stars like sunlight, and around 
Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves, 
Bursting and eddying irresistibly, 
Rage and resound for ever. — Who shall save ? — 



THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 11 

The boat fled on, — the boiling torrent drove, — 
The crags closed round with black and jagged arms, 
The shattered mountain overhung the sea, 
And faster still, beyond all human speed, 
Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave, 
The little boat was driven. A cavern there 
Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths 
Ingulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on 
With unrelaxing speed. " Vision and Love !" 
The Poet cried aloud, " I have beheld 
The path of thy departure. Sleep and death 
Shall not divide us long." 

The boat pursued 
The windings of the cavern. Day -light shone 
At length upon that gloomy river's flow ; 
Now, where the fiercest war among the waves 
Is calm, on the unfathomable stream 
The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven, 
Exposed those black depths to the azure sky, 
Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell 
Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound 
That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass 
Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm ; 
Stair above stair the eddying waters rose, 
Circling immeasurably fast, and laved 
With alternating dash the gnarled roots 
Of mighty trees, that stretched then.' giant arms 
In darkness over it. I' the midst was left, 
Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud, 
A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm, 
Seized by the sway of the ascending stream, 
With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round, 
Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose, 
Till on the verge of the extremest curve, 
Where, through an opening of the rocky bank, 
The waters overflow, and a smooth spot 
Of glassy quiet 'mid those battling tides 
Is left, the boat paused shuddering. Shall it sink 



12 ALASTOR ; OR, 

Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress 

Of that resistless gulf embosom it ? 

Now shall it fall ? A wandering stream of wind, 

Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail, 

And, lo ! with gentle motion between banks 

Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream, 

Beneath a woven grove, it sails, and, hark ! 

The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar, 

With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods. 

Where the embowering trees recede, and leave 

A little space of green expanse, the cove 

Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers 

For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes, 

Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave 

Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task, 

Which nought but vagrant bird, or wanton wind, 

Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay 

Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed 

To deck with their bright hues his withered hair, 

But on his heart its solitude returned, 

And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid 

Ja those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame, 

Had yet performed its ministry : it hung 

Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud 

Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods 

Of night close over it. 

The noonday sun 
Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass 
Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence 
A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves, 
•Scooped in the dark base of those aery rocks 
Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever. 
The meeting boughs and implicated leaves 
Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as led 
By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death, 
He sought in Nature's dearest haunt, some bank, 
Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark 
And dark the shades accumulate — the oak, 



THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. IS 

Expanding its immense and knotty arms, 

Embraces the light beech. The pyramids 

Of the tall cedar overarching, frame 

Most solemn domes within, and far below, 

Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky, 

The ash and the acacia floating hang 

Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed 

In rainbow and in fire, the parasites, 

Starr'd with ten thousand blossoms, flow around 

The grey trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes, 

With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles, 

Fold thefr beams round the hearts of those that love, 

These twine thefr tendrils with the wedded boughs 

Uniting their close union ; the woven leaves 

Make net- work of the dark blue light of day, 

And the night's noontide clearness, mutable 

As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns 

Beneath these canopies extend thefr swells, 

Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms 

Minute, yet beautiful. One darkest glen 

Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine, 

A soul-dissolving odour, to invite 

To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell, 

Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep 

Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades, 

Like vaporous shapes half-seen ; beyond, a well, 

Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave, 

Images all the woven boughs above, 

And each depending leaf, and every speck 

Of azure sky, darting between their chasms ; 

Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves 

Its portraiture, but some inconstant star 

Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair, 

Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon, 

Or gorgeous insect, floating motionless, 

Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings 

Have spread thefr glories to the gaze of noon. 

Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld 



14 ALASTOR ; OR, 

Their own wan light through the reflected lines 
Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth 
Of that still fountain ; as the human heart, 
Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave, 
Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard 
The motion of the leaves, the grass that sprung 
Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel 
An unaccustomed presence, and the sound 
Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs 
Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed 
To stand beside him — clothed in no bright robes 
Of shadowy silver or enshrining light, 
Borrow'd from aught the visible world affords 
Of grace, or majesty, or mystery ; — 
But undulating woods, and silent well, 
And rippling rivulet, and evening gloom 
Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming- 
Held commune with him, as if he and it 
Were all that was, — only — when his regard 
Was raised by intense pensiveness, — two eyes, 
Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought, 
And seemed with their serene and azure smiles 
To beckon him. 

Obedient to the light 
That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing 
The windings of the dell. — The rivulet 
Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine 
Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell 
Among the moss, with hollow harmony 
Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones 
It danced ; like childhood laughing as it went : 
Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept, 
Reflecting every herb and drooping bud 
That overhung its quietness. — " O stream ! 
Whose source is inaccessibly profound, 
Whither do thy mysterious waters tend ? 
Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness, 
Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs, 



THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 15 

Thy searchless fountain, and invisible course 
Have each their type in me : And the wide sky, 
And measureless ocean may declare as soon 
What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud 
Contains thy waters, as the universe 
Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched 
Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste 
I' the passing wind ! " 

Beside the grassy shore 
Of the small stream he went ; he did impress 
On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught 
Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one 
Roused by some joyous madness from the couch 
Of fever, he did move ; yet, not like him, 
Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame 
Of his frail exultation shall be spent, 
He must descend. With rapid steps he went 
Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow 
Of the wild babbling rivulet ; and now 
The forest's solemn canopies were changed 
For the uniform and lightsome evening sky. 
Grey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed 
The struggling brook : tall spires of windlestrae 
Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope, 
And nought but gnarled roots of ancient pines 
Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots 
The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here, 
Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away, 
The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin 
And white ; and where irradiate dewy eyes 
Had shone, gleam stony orbs : so from his steps 
Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade 
Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds 
And musical motions. Calm, he still pursued 
The stream, that with a larger volume now 
Rolled through the labyrinthine dell ; and there 
Fretted a path through its descending curves 
With its wintry speed. On every side now rose 



16 ALASTOR; OR, 

Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms, 
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles 
In the light of evening, and its precipice 
Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above, . 
'Mid toppling stones, black gulfs, and yawning caves, 
Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues 
To the loud stream. Lo ! where the pass expands 
Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks, 
And seems, with its accumulated crags, 
To overhang the world : for wide expand 
Beneath the wan stars and descending moon 
Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams, 
Dim tracks and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom 
Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills 
Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge 
Of the remote horizon. The near scene, 
In naked and severe simplicity, 
Made contrast with the universe. A pine, 
Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy 
Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast 
Yielding one only response, at each pause, 
In most familiar cadence, with the howl 
The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams 
Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river, 
Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path, 
Fell into that immeasurable void, 
Scattering its waters to the passing winds. 
Yet the grey precipice, and solemn pine 
And torrent, were not all ; — one silent nook 
Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain, 
Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks, 
It overlooked in its serenity 
The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars. 
It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile 
Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped 
The fissured stones with its entwining arms, 
And did embower with leaves for ever green, 
And berries dark, the smooth and even space 
Of its inviolated floor, and here 



THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 

The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore, 

In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay, 

Red, yellow, or ethereally pale, 

Rival the pride of summer. 'Tis the haunt 

Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach 

The wilds to love tranquillity. One step, 

One human step alone, has ever broken 

The stillness of its solitude : — one voice 

Alone inspired its echoes ; — even that voice 

Which hither came, floating among the winds, 

And led the loveliest among human forms 

To make their wild haunts the depository 

Of all the grace and beauty that endued 

Its motions, render up its majesty, 

Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm, 

And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould, 

Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss, 

Commit the colours of that varying cheek, 

That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes. 

The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured 
A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge 
That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist 
Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank 
Wan moonlight even to fulness : not a star 
Shone, not a sound was heard ; the very winds, 
Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice 
Slept, clasped in his embrace. — 0, storm of death ! 
Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night : 
And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still 
Guiding its irresistible career 
In thy devastating omnipotence, 
Art king of this frail world, from the red field 
Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital, 
The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed 
Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne, 
A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls 
His brother Death. A rare and regal prey 
He hath prepared, prowling around the world ; 



18 ALASTOR ; OR, 

Glutted with which thou may'st repose, and men 
Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms, 
Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine 
The unheeded tribute of a broken heart. 

When on the threshold of the green recess 
The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death 
Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled, 
Did he resign his high and holy soul 
To images of the majestic past, 
That paused within his passive being now, 
Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe 
Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place 
His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk 
Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone 
Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest, 
Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink 
Of that obscurest chasm ; — and thus he lay, 
Surrendering to their final impulses 
The hovering powers of life. Hope and despair, 
The torturers, slept : no mortal pain or fear 
Marred his repose, the influxes of sense, 
And his own being unalloyed by pain, 
Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed 
The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there 
At peace, and faintly smiling : — his last sight 
Was the great moon, which o'er the western line 
Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended, 
With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed 
To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills 
It rests, and still as the divided frame 
Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood, 
That ever beat in mystic sympathy 
With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still : 
And when two lessening points of light alone 
Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp 
Of his faint respiration scarce did stir 
The stagnate night : — till the minutest ray 
Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart. 



THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. lg 

It paused — it fluttered. But when heaven remained 

Utterly black, the iuurky shades involved 

An image, silent, cold, and motionless, 

As their own voiceless earth and vacant air. 

Even as a vapour fed with golden beams 

That ministered on sunlight, ere the west 

Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame — 

No sense, no motion, no divinity — 

A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings 

The breath of heaven did wander — a bright stream 

Once fed with many- voiced waves — a dream 

Of youth, which night and time have quenched for ever, 

Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now. 

0, for Medea's wondrous alchymy, 
Which wheresoe'er it feU made the earth gleam 
With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale 
From vernal blooms fresh fragrance ! O, that God, 
Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice 
Which but one living man has drained, who now, 
"Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels 
No proud exemption in the blighting curse 
He bears, over the world wanders for ever, 
Lone as incarnate death ! O, that the dream 
Of dark magician in his visioned cave, 
Raking the cinders of a crucible 
For life and power, even when Ins feeble hand 
Shakes in its last decay, were the true law 
Of this so lovely world ! But thou art fled 
Like some frail exhalation, which the dawn 
Robes in its golden beams, — ah ! thou hast fled ! 
The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful, 
The child of grace and genius. Heartless things 
Are done and said i' the world, and many worms 
And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth 
From sea and mountain, city and wilderness, 
In vesper low or joyous orison, 
Lifts still its solemn voice : — but thou art fled — 
Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes 



20 ALASTOR ; OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 

Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee 

Been purest ministers, who are, alas ! 

Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips 

So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes 

That image sleep in death, upon that form 

Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear 

Be shed — not even in thought. Nor, when those hues 

Are gone, and those divinest lineaments, 

Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone 

In the frail pauses of this simple strain, 

Let not high .verse, mourning the memory 

Of that which is no more, or painting's woe 

Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery 

Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence, 

And all the shows o' the world, are frail and vain 

To weep a loss that turns their light to shade. 

It is a woe " too deep for tears," when all 

Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit, 

Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves 

Those who remain behind nor sobs nor groans, 

The passionate tumult of a clinging hope ; 

But pale despair and cold tranquillity, 

Nature's vast frame, the web of human things, 

Birth and the grave, that are not as they were. 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 



Before those cruel Twins, whom at one birth 
Incestuous Change bore to her father Time, 

Error and Truth, had hunted from the earth 

All those bright natures which adorned its pinnie, 

And left us nothing to believe in, worth 
The pains of putting into learned rhyme, 

A lady-witch there lived on Atlas' mountain 

Within a cavern by a secret fountain. 

ii. 
Her mother was one of the Atlantides : 

The all-beholding Sun had ne'er beholden 
In his wide voyage o'er continents and seas 

So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden 
In the warm shadow of her loveliness ; — 

He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden 
The chamber of grey rock in which she lay — 
She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away. 

in. 
'Tis said, she was first changed into a vapour, 

And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit, 
Like splendour-winged moths about a taper, 

Round the red west when the sun dies in it : 
And then into a meteor, such as caper 

On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit ; 
Then, into one of those mysterious stars 
Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars. 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 



Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent 
Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden 

With that bright sign the billows to indent 
The sea-deserted sand : like children chidden, 

At her command they ever came and went : — 
Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden, 

Took shape and motion: with the living form 

Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm. 



A lovely lady garmented in light 

From her own beauty — deep her eyes, as are 
Two openings of unfathomable night 

Seen through a tempest's cloven roof ; — her hair 
Dark — the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight, 

Picturing her form ; — her soft smiles shone afar, 
And her low voice was heard like love, and drew 
All living tilings towards this wonder new. 



And first the spotted camelopard came, 
And then the wise and fearless elephant f \ 

Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame 
Of his own volumes intervolved ; : — all gaunt 

And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame. 
They drank before her at her sacred fount ; 

And every beast of beating heart grew bold, 

Such gentleness and power even to behold. 



The brinded lioness led forth her young, 

That she might teach them how they should forego 

Their inborn thirst of death ; the pard unstrung 
His sinews at her feet, and sought to know 

With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue 
How he might be as gentle as the doe. 

The magic circle of her voice and eyes 

All savage natures did imparadise. 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 

virr. 
And old Silenus, shaking a green stick 

Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew 
Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick 

Cicadse are, drunk with the noonday dew: 
And Driope and Faunus followed quick, 

Teazing the God to sing them something new. 
Till in this cave they found the lady lone, 
Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone. 



And universal Pan, 'tis said, was there, 

And though none saw him, — through the adamant 

Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air, 
And through those living spirits, like a want, 

He passed out of his everlasting lair 

Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant, 

And felt that wondrous lady all alone, — 

And she felt him upon her emerald throne. 



And every nymph of stream and spreading tree, 
And every shepherdess of Ocean's flocks, 

Who drives her white waves over the green sea ; 
And Ocean, with the brine on his grey locks, 

And quaint Priapus with his company, 

All came, much wondering how the enwombed rocks 

Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth ; — 

Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth. 



The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came, 
And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant — 

Their spirits shook within them, as a flame 
Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt : 

Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name, 
Centaurs and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt 

Wet clefts, — and lumps neither alive nor dead, 

Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed. ^ 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 



For she was beautiful : her beauty made 

The bright world dim, and everything beside 

Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade : 
No thought of living spirit could abide, 

Which to her looks had ever been betrayed, 
On any object in the world so wide, 

On any hope within the circling skies, 

But on her form, and in her inmost eyes. 

XIII. 

Which when the lady knew, she took her spindle 
And twined three threads of fleecy mist, and three 

Long lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle 
The clouds and waves and mountains with, and she 

As many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle ^ 
In the belated moon, wound skilfully ; 

And with these threads a subtle veil she wove — 

A shadow for the splendour of her love. ■ 

XIV. 

The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling 

Were stored with magic treasures — sounds of air, 

Which had the power all spirits of compelling, 
Folded in cells of crystal silence there ; 

Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling 
Will never die — yet ere we are aware, 

The feeling and the sound are fled and gone, 

And the regret they leave remains alone. 



And there lay visions swift, and sweet, and quaint, 
Each in its thin sheath like a chrysalis ; 

Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint 
With the soft burthen of intensest bliss : 

It is its work to bear to many a saint 

Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is, 

Even Love's — and others white, green, grey, and black, 

And of all shapes — and each was at her beck. 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 25 

XVI. 

And odours in a kind of aviary 

Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept, 
Clipt in a floating net, a love-sick Fairy 

Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet 
As bats at the wired window of a dairy, [slept ; 

They beat then* vans ; and each was an adept, 
When loosed and missioned, making wings of winds, 
To stir sweet thoughts or sad, in destined minds. 



xvir. 
And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might 

Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep, 
And change eternal death into a night 

Of glorious dreams — or if eyes needs must weep 
Could make their tears all wonder and delight, 

She in her crystal vials did closely keep : 
If men could drink of those clear vials, 'tis said 
The living were not envied of the dead. 



XVIII. 

Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device, 
The works of some Saturnian Archimage, 

Which taught the expiations at whose price 
Men from the Gods might win that happy age 

Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice ; 

And which might quench the earth-consuming rage 

Of gold and blood — till men should live and move 

Harmonious as the sacred stars above. 



XIX. 

And how all things that seem untameable, 
Not to be checked and not to be confined, 

Obey the spells of wisdom's wizard skill ; 

Time, Earth, and Fire— the Ocean and the Wind, 

And all their shapes — and man's imperial will ; 
And other scrolls whose writings did unbind 

The inmost lore of Love — let the profane 

Tremble to ask what secrets they contain. 



26 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 

xx. 

And wondrous works of substances unknown, ' 
To which the enchantment of her father's power 

Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone, 
Were heaped in the recesses of her bower ; 

Carved lamps and chalices, and phials which shone 
In their own golden beams — each like a flower, 

Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his light 

Under a cypress in a starless night. 



At first she lived alone in this wild home, 
And her thoughts were each a minister, 

Clothing themselves or with the ocean-foam, 
Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire, 

To work whatever purposes might come 

Into her mind : such power her mighty Sire 

Had girt them with, whether to fly or run, 

Through all the regions which he shines upon. 

xxn. 
The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades, 

Oreads and Naiads with long weedy locks, 
Offered to do her bidding through the seas, 

Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks, 
And far beneath the matted roots of trees, 

And in the gnarled heart of stubborn oaks, 
So they might live for ever in the light 
Of her sweet presence — each a satellite. 

XXXII. 

" This may not be," the wizard maid replied ; 

" The fountains where the Naiades bedew 
Their shining hair, at length are drained and dried ; 

The solid oaks forget their strength, and strew 
Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide ; 

The boundless ocean, like a drop of dew 
Will be consumed — the stubborn centre must 
Be scattered, like a cloud of summer dust. 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 27 

xxrv. 
" And ye with them will perish one by one : 

If I must sigh to think that this shall be, 
If I must weep when the surviving Sun 

Shall smile on your decay — Oh, ask not me 
To love you till your little race is run ; 

I cannot die as ye must — over me 
Your leaves shall glance — the streams in which ye dwell 
Shall be my paths henceforth, and so farewell ! " 

XXV. 

She spoke and wept : the dark and azure well 
Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears, 

And every little circlet where they fell, 

Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres 

And intertangled lines of light : — a knell 
Of sobbing voices came upon her ears 

From those departing Forms, o'er the serene 

Of the white streams and of the forest green. 

XXVI. 

All day the wizard lady sat aloof, 

Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity, 
Under the cavern's fountain-lighted roof ; 

Or broidering the pictured poesy 
Of some high tale upon her growing woof, 

Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could dye 
In hues outshining heaven — and ever she 
Added some grace to the wrought poesy. 

xxvir. 
While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece 

Of sandal-wood, rare giuns, and cinnamon ; 
Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is, 

Each flame of it is as a precious stone 
Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this 

Belongs to each and all who gaze upon. 
The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand 
She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand. 

c 2 



28 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 

XXVIII. 

This lady never slept, but lay in trance 
All night within the fountain — as in sleep. 

Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty's glance : 
Through the green splendour of the water deep 

She saw the constellations reel and dance 
Like fire-flies — and withal did ever keep 

The tenour of her contemplations calm, 

With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm. 

XXIX. 

And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended 
From the white pinnacles of that cold hill, 

She passed at dewfall to a space extended, 
Where, in a lawn of flowering asphodel 

Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended, 
There yawned an inextinguishable well 

Of crimson fire, full even to the brim, 

And overflowing all the margin trim. 

XXX. 

Within the which she lay when the fierce war 
Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor 

In many a mimic moon and bearded star, 

O'er woods and lawns — the serpent heard it flicker 

In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar — 
And when the windless snow descended thicker 

Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came 

Melt on the surface of the level flame. 

XXXI. 

She had a Boat which some say Vulcan wrought 
For Venus, as the chariot of her star ; 

But it was found too feeble to be fraught 

With all the ardours in that sphere which are, 

And so she sold it, and Apollo bought 

And gave it to this daughter : from a car 

Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat 

Which ever upon mortal stream did float. 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 

xxxrr. 
And others say, that, when but three hours old, 
I The first-born Love out of his cradle leapt, 
And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold, 

And like a horticultural adept, 
Stole a strange seed, and wrapt it up in mould, 

And sowed it in his mother's star, and kept 
Watering it all the summer with sweet dew, 
And with his wings fanning it as it grew. 



The plant grew strong and green — the snowy flower 
Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began 

To turn the light and dew by inward power 
To its own substance : woven tracery ran 

Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o'er 
The solid rind, like a leaf's veined fan, 

Of which Love scooped this boat, and with soft motion 

Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean. 

XXXIV. 

This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit 

A living spirit within all its frame, 
Breathing the soul of swiftness into it. 

Couched on the fountain like a panther tame, 
One of the twain at Evan's feet that sit ; 

Or as on Vesta's sceptre a swift flame, 
Or on blind Homer's heart a winged thought, — ■ 
In joyous expectation lay the boat. 

XXXV. 

Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow 
Together, tempering the repugnant mass 

With liquid love — all things together grow 
Through which the harmony of love can pass ; 

And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow 
A living Image, which did far surpass 

In beauty that bright shape of vital stone 

Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion. 



30 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 

XXXVI. 

A sexless thing it was, and in its growth 

It seemed to have developed no defect 
Of either sex, yet all the grace of both, — 

In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked ; 
The bosom lightly swelled with its full youth, 

The countenance was such as might select 
Some artist that his skill should never die, 
Imaging forth such perfect purity. 

XXXVII. 

From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings, 
Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere, 

Tipt with the speed of hquid lightenings, 
Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere : 

She led her creature to the boiling springs 

Where the light boat was moored, and said — "Sit 

And pointed to the prow, and took her seat [here ! " 

Beside the rudder with opposing feet. 

XXXVIII. 

And down the streams which clove those mountains vast 

Around their inland islets, and amid 
The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast 

Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid 
In melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed ; 

By many a star-surrounded pyramid 
Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky, 
And caverns yawning round unfathomably. 

XXXIX. 

The silver noon into that winding dell, 

With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops, 

Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell ; 

A green and glowing light, like that which drops 

From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell, 
When earth over her face night's mantle wraps ; 

Between the severed mountains lay on high 

Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky. 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 



And ever as she went, the Image lay 

With folded wings and unawakened eyes ; 

And o'er its gentle countenance did play 
The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies, 

Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay, 

And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs 

Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain, 

They had aroused from that full heart and brain. 



And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud 
Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went : 

Now lingering on the pools, in which abode 
The calm and darkness of the deep content 

In which they paused ; now o'er the shallow road 
Of white and dancing waters, all besprent 

With sand and polished pebbles : — mortal boat 

In such a shallow rapid could not float. 



And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver 
Their snow-like waters into golden ah', 

Or under chasms unfathomable ever 

Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear 

A subterranean portal for the river, 

It fled — the circling sunbows did upbear 

Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray, 

Lighting it far upon its lampless way. 



And when the wizard lady would ascend 
The labyrinths of some many-winding vale, 

Which to the inmost mountain upward tend — 
She called " Hermaphroditus ! " and the pale 

And heavy hue which slumber could extend 
Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale 

A rapid shadow from a slope of grass, 

Into the darkness of the stream did pass. 



32 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 

XL1V. 

And it unfurled its heaven -col oured pinions, 
With stars of fire spotting the stream below ; 

And from above into the Sun's dominions 
Flinging a glory, like the golden glow 

In which spring clothes her emerald- winged minions, 
All interwoven with fine feathery snow 

And moonlight splendour of intensest rime, 

With which frost paints the pines in winter time. 

XLV. 

And then it winnowed the Elysian air 
Which ever hung about that lady bright, 

With its ethereal vans — and speeding there, 
Like a star up the torrent of the night, 

Or a swift eagle in the morning glare 

Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight ; 

The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings, 

Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs. 

xi/vi. 
The water flashed like sunlight by the prow 

Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven ; 
The still air seemed as if its waves did flow 

In tempest down the mountains, — loosely driven 
The lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro ; 

Beneath, the billows having vainly striven 
Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel 
The swift and steady motion of the keel. 



Or, when the weary moon was in the wane, 

Or in the noon of interlunar night, 
The lady-witch in visions could not chain 

Her spirit ; but sailed forth under the light 
Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain 

His storm-outspeeding wings, th' Hermaphrodite ; 
She to the Austral waters took her way, 
Beyond the fabulous Thamondocona. 



TIIE WITCH OF ATLAS. 3^ 

XLVIIX. 

Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, 
- Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake, 

With the Antarctic constellations paven, 

Canopus and his crew, lay th' Austral lake — 

There she would build herself a windless haven 
Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make 

The bastions of the storm, when through the sky 

The spirits of the tempest thundered by. 

XLIX. 

A haven, beneath whose translucent floor 
The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably, 

And around which the solid vapours hoar, 
Based on the level waters, to the sky 

Lifted their dreadful crags ; and like a shore 
Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly 

Hemmed in with rifts and precipices grey, 

And hanging crags, many a cove and bay. 



And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash 

Of the winds' scourge, foamed like a wounded thing; 

And the incessant hail with stony clash 

Ploughed up the waters, and the nagging wing 

Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash 
Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering 

Fragment of inky thunder-smoke — this haven 

Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven. 



On which that lady played her many pranks, 
Circling the image of a shooting star, 

Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks 

Outspeeds the Antelopes which speediest are, 

In her light boat ; and many quips and cranks 
She played upon the water ; till the car 

Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan, 

To journey from the misty east began. 

c 3 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 



And then she called out of the hollow turrets 

Of those high clouds, white, golden, and vermilion, 

The armies of her ministering spirits — 
In mighty legions million after million 

They came, each troop emblazoning its merits 
On meteor flags ; and many a proud pavilion, 

Of the intertexture of the atmosphere, 

They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere. 

Lirr. 
They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen 

Of woven exhalations, underlaid 
With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen 

A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid 
With crimson silk — cressets from the serene 

Hung there, and on the water for her tread, 
A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn, 
Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon. 



And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught 
Upon those wandering isles of aery dew, 

Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not, 
She sate, and heard all that had happened new 

Between the earth and moon since they had brought 
The last intelligence — and now she grew 

Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night — 

And now she wept, and now she laughed outright. 



These were tame pleasures. — She would often climb 
The steepest ladder of the crudded rack 

Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime, 
And like Arion on the dolphin's back 

Ride singing through the shoreless air. Oft time 
Following the serpent lightning's winding track, 

She ran upon the platforms of the wind, 

And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind. 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 



And sometimes to those streams of upper air, 
Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round, 

She would ascend, and win the spirits there 
To let her join their chorus. Mortals found 

That on those days the sky was calm and fair, 
And mystic snatches of harmonious sound 

Wandered upon the earth where'er she passed, 

And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last. 



But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep, 
To glide adown old Nilus, when he threads 

Egypt and ^Ethiopia, from the steep 
Of utmost Axume, until he spreads, 

Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep, 
His waters on the plain : and crested heads 

Of cities and proud temples gleam amid, 

And many a vapour-belted pyramid. 



By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes, 

Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors 
Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes, 

Or charioteering ghastly alligators, 
Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes 

Of those huge forms : — within the brazen doors 
Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast, 
Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast. 



And where within the surface of the river 
The shadows of the massy temples he, 

And never are erased — but tremble ever 

Like things which every cloud can doom to die, 

Through lotus-pav'n canals, and wheresoever 
The works of man pierced that serenest sky 

With tombs, and towers, and fane, 'twas her delight 

To wander in the shadow of the night. 



1 



36 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 

LX. 

With motion like the spirit of that wind 

Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet 

Past through the peopled haunts of human kind, 
Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet, 

Through fane and palace-court and labyrinth mined 
With many a dark and subterranean street 

Under the Nile ; through chambers high and deep 

She past, observing mortals in their sleep. 

IXI. 

A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see 
Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep. 

Here lay two sister-twins in infancy ; 

There a lone youth who hi his dreams did weep ; 

Within, two lovers linked innocently 

In their loose locks which over both did creep 

Like ivy from one stem ; — and there lay calm, 

Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm. 



But other troubled forms of sleep she saw, 
Not to be mirrored in a holy song, 

Distortions foul of supernatural awe, 
And pale imaginings of visioned wrong, 

And all the code of custom's lawless law 
Written upon the brows of old and young : 

" This," said the wizard maiden, " is the strife 

Which stirs the liquid surface of man's life." 



And little did the sight disturb her soul — 
We, the weak mariners of that wide lake, 

Where'er its shores extend or billows roll, 
Our course unpiloted and starless make 

O'er its wide surface to an unknown goal, — 
But she in the calm depths her way could take, 

Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide, 

Beneath the weltering of the restless tide. 



TEE WITCH OF ATLAS. 

LXIV. 

And she saw princes couched under the glow 
Of sunlike gems ; and round each temple-court 

In dormitories ranged, row after row, 

She saw the priests asleep, — all of one sort, 

For all were educated to he so. 

The peasants in their huts, and in the port 

The sailors she saw cradled on the waves, 

And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves. 

LXV. 

And all the forms in which those spirits lay, 
Were to her sight like the diaphanous 

Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array 

Their delicate limhs, who would conceal from us 

Only their scorn of all concealment : they 
Move in the light of their own beauty thus. 

But these and all now lay with sleep upon them, 

And little thought a Witch was looking on them. 

lxvl 
She all those human figures breathing there 

Beheld as living spirits — to her eyes 
The naked beauty of the soul lay bare, 

And often through a rude and worn disguise 
She saw the inner form most bright and fair — 

And then,— she had a charm of strange device, 
Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone, 
Could make that spirit mingle with her own. 

lxvii. 
Alas, Aurora ! what wouldst thou have given 

For such a charm, when Tithon became grey ? 
Or how much, Venus, of thy silver heaven 

Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina 
Had half (oh ! why not all ?) the debt forgiven 

Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay, 
To any witch who would have taught you it ? 
The Heliad doth not know its value yet. 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 



'Tis said in after times her spirit free 

Knew what love was, and felt itself alone 

But holy Dian could not chaster be 
Before she stooped to kiss Endymion, 

Than now this lady — like a sexless bee 

Tasting all blossoms, and confined to none — 

Among those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden 

Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen. 



To those she saw most beautiful, she gave 

Strange panacea in a crystal bowl. 
They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave, 

And lived thenceforth as if some control, 
Mightier than life, were in them ; and the grave 

Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul, 
Was a green and over-arching bower 
Lit by the gems of many a starry flower. 

LXX. 

For on the night that they were buried, she 
Restored the embalmers' ruining, and shook 

The light out of the funeral lamps, to be 
A mimic day within that deathy nook ; 

And she unwound the woven imagery 

Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took 

The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche, 

And threw it with contempt into a ditch. 

lxxi. 
And there the body lay, age after age, 

Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, 
Like one asleep in a green hermitage, 

With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing, 
And living in its dreams beyond the rage 

Of death or life ; while they were still arraying 
In liveries ever new the rapid, blind, 
And fleeting generations of mankind. 



THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 3! 

LXXII. 

And she would write strange dreams upon the brain 
Of those who were less beautiful, and make 

All harsh and crooked purposes more vain 
Than in the desert is the serpent's wake 

Which the sand covers, — all his evil gain 

The miser in such dreams would rise and shake 

Into a beggar's lap ; — the lying scribe 

Would his own lies betray without a bribe. 

Lxxiir. 
The priests would write an explanation full, 

Translating hieroglyphics into Greek, 
How the god Apis really was a bull, 

And nothing more ; and bid the herald stick 
The same against the temple doors, and pull 

The old cant down ; they licensed all to speak 
Whate'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese, 
By pastoral letters to each diocese. 

LXXIV. 

The king would dress an ape up in his crown 
And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat, 

And on the right hand of the sunlike throne 
Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat 

The chatteriugs of the monkey. — Every one 
Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet 

Of their great Emperor when the morning came ; 

And kissed — alas, how many kiss the same ! 



The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and 
Walked out of quarters in somnambuhsm, 

Round the red anvils you might see them stand 
Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm, 

Beating their swords to ploughshares ; — in a band 
The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism 

Free through the streets of Memphis ; much, I wis, 

To the annoyance of king Amasis. 



40 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 

LXXVI. 

And timid lovers who had been so coy, 

They hardly knew whether they loved or not, 

Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy, 
To the fulfilment of their inmost thought ; 

And when next day the maiden and the boy 
Met one another, both, like sinners caught, 

Blushed at the thing which each believed was done 

Only in fancy — till the tenth moon shone ; 

Lxxvn. 
And then the Witch would let them take no ill : 

Of many thousand schemes which lovers find 
The Witch found one, — and so they took their fill 

Of happiness in marriage warm and kind. 
Friends who, by practice of some envious skill, 

Were torn apart, a wide wound, mind from mind ! 
She did unite again with visions clear 
Of deep affection and of truth sincere. 

LXXVI 1 1. 

These were the pranks she played among the cities 
Of mortal men, and what she did to sprites 

And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties, 
To do her will, and show their subtle slights, 

I will declare another time ; for it is 

A tale more fit for the weird winter nights — 

Than for these garish summer days, when we 

Scarcelv believe much more than we can see. 



EPIPSYCHIDION : 

VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND UNFORTUNATE 

LADY EMILIA V . 

NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CONVENT OF . 



"L'anima amante si slancia furio del creato, e si crea nel 
infinito un Mondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo 
oscuro e pauroso baratro." — Her own words. 



My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few 
Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning, 
Of such hard matter dost thou entertain ; 
Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring 
Thee to base company (as chance may do), 
Quite unaware of what thou dost contain, 
I prithee comfort thy sweet self again, 
My last delight ! tell them that they are dull, 
And bid them own that thou art beautiful. 



Sweet Spirit ! Sister of that orphan one, 
Whose empire is the name thou weepest on, 
In my heart's temple I suspend to thee 
These votive wreaths of withered memory. 

Poor captive bird ! who, from thy narrow cage, 
Pourest such music, that it might assuage 
The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee, 
Were they not deaf to all sweet melody ; 



42 EPIPSYCHIDION. 

This song shall be thy rose : its petals pale 
Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale ! 
But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom, ' 
And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom. 

High, spirit- winged Heart ! who dost for ever 
Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour, 
Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed 
It over-soared this low and worldly shade, 
Lie shattered ; and thy panting wounded breast 
Stains with dear blood its umnaternal nest ! 
I weep vain tears : blood would less bitter be, 
Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee. 

Seraph of Heaven ! too gentle to be human, 
Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman 
All that is insupportable in thee 
Of light, and love, and immortality ! 
Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse ! 
Veiled glory of this lampless Universe ! 
Thou Moon beyond the clouds ! Thou living Form 
Among the Dead ! Thou Star above the Storm ! 
Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror ! 
Thou Harmony of Nature's art ! Thou Mirror 
In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun, 
All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on ! 
Ay, even the dim words which obscure thee now 
Flash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow ; 
I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song 
All of its much mortality and wrong, 
With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew 
From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through, 
Weeping, till sorrow becomes ecstacy : 
Then smile on it, so that it may not die. 

I never thought before my death to see 
Youth's vision thus made perfect : Emily, 
I love thee ; though the world by no thin name 
Will hide that love, from its unvalued shame. 



EPIPSYCHIDION. 43 

Would we two had been twins of the same mother ! 
Or, that the name my heart lent to another 
Could be a sister's bond for her and thee, 
Blending two beams of one eternity ! 
Yet were one lawful and the other true, 
These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due, 
How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me ! 
I am not thine : I am a part of thee. 

Sweet Lamp ! my moth-like Muse has burnt its wings, 
Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings, 
Young Love should teach Time, in his own grey style, 
All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile, 
A lovely soul formed to be blest and bless ? 
A well of sealed and secret happiness, 
Whose waters like blithe light and music are, 
Vanquishing dissonance and gloom ? A Star 
Which moves not in the moving Heavens, alone % 
A smile amid dark frowns ? a gentle tone 
Amid rude voices ? a beloved light ? 
A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight % 
A lute, which those whom love has taught to play 
Make music on, to soothe the roughest day 
And lull fond grief asleep % a buried treasure ? 
A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure ? 
A violet-shrouded grave of Woe % — I measure 
The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, 
And find — alas ! mine own infirmity. 

She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way, 
And lured me towards sweet Death ; as Night by Day, 
Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope, 
Led into light, life, peace. An antelope, 
In the suspended impulse of its lightness, 
Were less ethereally light : the brightness 
Of her divinest presence trembles through 
Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew 
Embodied in the windless heaven of June, 
Amid the splendour-winged stars, the Moon 



44 EPIPSYCHIDION. 

Burns inextinguishably beautiful : 
And from her lips, as from a hyacinth full 
Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops, 
Killing the sense with passion : sweet as stops 
Of planetary music heard in trance. 
In her mild lights the starry spirits dance, 
The sunbeams of those wells which ever leap 
Under the lightnings of the soul — too deep 
For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense. 
The glory of her being, issuing thence, 
Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade 
Of unentangled intermixture, made 
By Love, of light and motion ; one intense 
Diffusion, one serene Omnipresence, 
Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing 
Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing 
With the imintermitted blood, which there 
Quivers, (as in a fleece of snow-like air 
The crimson pulse of living morning quiver,) 
Continuously prolonged, and ending never, 
Till they are lost, and in that Beauty furled 
Which penetrates and clasps and fills the world ; 
Scarce visible from extreme loveliness. 
Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress, 
And her loose hair ; and where some heavy tress 
The air of her own speed has disentwined, 
The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind ; 
And in the soul a wild odour is felt, 
Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt 
ijnto the bosom of a frozen bud. 
Bee where she stands ! a mortal shape indued 
With love and life and light and deity, 
And motion which may change but cannot die ; 
An image of some bright Eternity ; 
A shadow of some golden dream ; a Splendour 
Leaving the third sphere pilotless ; a tender 
Reflection on the eternal Moon of Love, 
Under whose motions life's dull billows move ; 
A Metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning ; 



EPIPSYCHIDION. 

A vision like incarnate April, warning, 
With smiles and tears, Frost the Anatomy 
Into his summer grave. 

Ah ! woe is me ! 
What have I dared ? where am I lifted ? how 
Shall I descend, and perish not ? I know 
That Love makes all things ecmal : I have heard 
By mine own heart this joyous truth averred : 
The spirit of the worm beneath the sod, 
In love and worship, blends itself with God. 

Spouse ! Sister ! Angel ! Pilot of the Fate 
Whose course has been so starless ! O too late 
Beloved ! too soon adored, by me ! 
For in the fields of immortality 
My spirit should at first have worshipped thine, 
A divine presence in a place divine ; 
Or should have moved beside it on this earth, 
A shadow of that substance, from its birth ; 
But not as now : — I love thee ; yes, I feel 
That on the fountain of my heart a seal 
Is set, to keep its waters pure and bright 
For thee, since in those tears thou hast delight. 
We — are we not formed, as notes of music are, 
For one another, though dissimilar ; 
Such difference without discord, as can make 
Those sweetest sounds, in which all spirits shake, 
As trembling leaves in a continuous air ? 

Thy wisdom speaks in me, and bids me dare 
Beacon the rocks on which high hearts are wreckt. 
I never was attached to that great sect, 
Whose doctrine is, that each one should select 
Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend, 
And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend 
To cold oblivion, though it is in the code 
Of modern morals, and the beaten road 
Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread, 






46 EPIPSYCHIDION. 

Who travel to their home among the dead 
By the broad highway of the world, and so 
With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe, 
The dreariest and the longest journey go. 

True Love in this differs from gold and clay, 
That to divide is not to take away. 
Love is like understanding, that grows bright, 
Gazing on many truths ; 'tis like thy light, 
Imagination ! which, from earth and sky, 
And from the depths of human phantasy, 
As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills 
The Universe with glorious beams, and kills 
Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow 
Of its reverberated lightning. Narrow 
The heai*t that loves, the brain that contemplates, 
The life that wears, the spirit that creates 
One object, and one form, and builds thereby 
A sepulchre for its eternity. 

Mind from its object differs most in this : 
Evil from good ; misery from happiness ; 
The baser from the nobler ; the impure 
And frail, from what is clear and must endure. 
If you divide suffering and dross, you may 
Diminish till it is consumed away ; - 
If you divide pleasure and love and thought, 
Each part exceeds the whole ; and we know not 
How much, while any yet remains unshared, 
Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared : 
This truth is that deep well, whence sages draw 
The unenvied light of hope ; the eternal law 
By which those live, to whom this world of life 
Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife 
Tills for the promise of a later birth 
The wilderness of this Elysian earth. 

There was a Being whom my spirit oft 
Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, 



EPIPSYCHIDION. 47 

In the clear golden prime of my youth's dawn, 

Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn, 

Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves 

Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves 

Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor 

Paved her light steps ; — on an imagined shore, 

Under the grey beak of some promontory 

She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, 

That I beheld her not. In solitudes 

Her voice came to me through the whispering woods, 

And from the fountains, and the odours deep 

Of flowers, which, like lips murmuring hi their sleep 

Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there, 

Breathed but of her to the enamoured ah' ; 

And from the breezes whether low or loud, 

And from the rain of every passing cloud, 

And from the singing of the summer-birds, 

And from all sounds, all silence. In the words 

Of antique verse and high romance, — in form, 

Sound, colour — in whatever checks that Storm 

Which with the shattered present chokes the past ; 

And in that best philosophy, whose taste 

Makes this cold common hell, our life, a doom 

As glorious as a fiery martyrdom ; 

Her Spirit was the harmony of truth. — 

Then, from the caverns of my dreamy youth 
I sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire, 
And towards the loadstar of my one desire, 
I flitted, like a dizzy moth, whose flight 
Is as a dead leaf's in the owlet light, 
When it would seek in Hesper's setting sphere 
A radiant death, a fiery sepulchre, 
As if it were a lamp of earthly flame. — 
But She, whom prayers or tears then could not tame, 
Past, like a God throned on a winged planet, 
Whose burning plumes to tenfold swiftness fan it, 
Into the dreary cone of our life's shade ; 
And as a man with mighty loss dismayed, 



43 EPIPSYCHIDION. 

I would have followed, though the grave between 
Yawned like a gulf whose spectres are unseen : 
When a voice said : — " O Thou of hearts the weakest, 
The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest." 
Then I — " Where % " the world's echo answered 

" where ! " 
And in that silence, and in my despair, 
I questioned every tongueless wind that flew 
Over my tower of mourning, if it knew 
Whither 'twas fled, this soul out of my soul ; 
And murmured names and spells which have con- 

troul 
Over the sightless tyrants of our fate ; 
But neither prayer nor verse could dissipate 
The night which closed on her; nor un create 
That world within this chaos, mine and me, 
Of which she was the veiled Divinity, 
The world I say of thoughts that worshipped her : 
And therefore I went forth, with hope and fear. 
And every gentle passion sick to death, 
Feeding my course with expectation's breath, 
Into the wintry forest of our life ; 
And struggling through its error with vain strife, 
And stumbling in my weakness and my haste, 
And half bewildered by new forms, I past 
Seeking among those untaught foresters 
If I could find one form resembling hers, 
In which she might have masked herself from me. 
There, — One, whose voice was venomed melody 
Sate by a well, under blue night-shade bowers ; 
The breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers, 
Her touch was as electric poison, — flame 
Out of her looks into my vitals came, 
And from her living cheeks and bosom flew 
A killing air, which pierced like honey-dew 
Into the core of my green heart, and lay 
Upon its leaves : until, as hair grown grey 
O'er a young brow, they hid its unblown prime 
With ruins of unseasonable time. 






EPIPSYCHLDIOX. 

Ill many mortal forms I rashly sought 
The shadow of that idol of my thought. 
And some were fair — hut beauty dies away : 
Others were wise — hut honeyed words betray : 
And One was true — oh ! why not time to me ? 
Then, as a hunted deer that could not flee, 
1 turned upon my thoughts, and stood at bay, 
Wounded, and weak, and panting ; the cold day 
Trembled, for pity of my strife and pain, 
When, like a noon-day dawn, there shone again 
Deliverance. One stood on my path who seemed 
As like the glorious shape which I had dreamed. 
As is the Moon, whose changes ever run 
. Into themselves, to the eternal Sun ; 
The cold chaste Moon, the Queen of Heaven's bri 

isles, 
Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles. 
That wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame 
Which ever is transformed, yet still the same, 
And warms not but illumines. Young and fair 
As the descended Spirit of that sphere, 
She hid me, as the Moon may hide the night 
From its own darkness, until all was bright 
Between the Heaven and Earth of my calm mind, 
And, as a cloud charioted by the wind, 
She led me to a cave in that wild place, 
And sat beside me, with her downward face 
Illumining my siunibers, like the Moon 
Waxing and waning o'er Endymion. 
And I was laid asleep, spirit and limb, 
And all my being became bright or dim 
As the Moon's image in a summer sea, 
According as she smiled or frowned on me ; 
And there I lay, within a chaste cold bed : 
Alas, I then was nor alive nor dead : — 
For at her silver voice came Death and Life, 
Unmindful each of their accustomed strife, 
Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother, 
The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother, 



5 EPIPSYCHIDION. 

And through the cavern without wings they flew, 
And cried, " Away ! he is not of our crew." 
I wept, and, though it be a dream, I weep. 

What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep, 
Blotting that Moon, whose pale and waning lips 
Then shrank as in the sickness of eclipse ; — 
And how my soul was as a lampless sea, 
And who was then its Tempest ; and when She, 
The Planet of that hour, was quenched, what frost 
Crept o'er those waters, till from coast to coast 
The moving billows of my being fell 
Into a death of ice, immoveable ; — 
And then — what earthquakes made it gape and split, 
The white Moon smiling all the while on it, 
These words conceal : — If not, each word would be 
The key of staunchless tears. Weep not for me ! 

At length, into the obscure forest came 
The vision I had sought through grief and shame. 
Athwart that wintry wilderness of thorns 
Flashed from her motion splendour like the Morn's, 
And from her presence life was radiated 
Through the grey earth and branches bare and dead ; 
So that her way was paved, and roofed above 
With flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love ; 
And music from her respiration spread 
Like light, — all other sounds were penetrated 
By the small, still, sweet spirit of that sound, 
So that the savage winds hung mute around ; 
And odours warm and fresh fell from her hair 
Dissolving the dull cold in the froze air : 
Soft as an Incarnation of the Sun, 
When light is changed to love, this glorious One 
Floated into the cavern where I lay, 
And called my Spirit, and the dreaming clay 
Was lifted by the thing that dreamed beloAv 
As smoke by fire, and in her beauty's glow 
I stood, and felt the dawn of my long night 






EPIPSYCHIDION. i 

Was penetrating me with living light : 
I knew it was the Vision veiled from me 
So many years — that it was Emily. 

Thin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth, 
This world of love, this me ; and into birth 
Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart 
Magnetic might into its central heart ; 
And lift its billows and its mists, and guide 
By everlasting laws each wind and tide 
To its fit cloud, and its appointed cave ; 
And lull its storms, each in the craggy grave 
Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers 
The armies of the rainbow- winged showers ; 
And, as those married lights, which from the towers 
Of Heaven look forth and fold the wandering globe 
In liquid sleep and splendour, as a robe ; 
And all their many-mingled influence blend, 
If equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end ; — 
So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway, 
Govern my sphere of being, night and day ! 
Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might ; 
Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light ; 
And, through the shadow of the seasons three, 
From Spring to Autumn's sere maturity, 
Light it into the Winter of the tomb, 
Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom. 
Thou too, O Comet, beautiful and fierce, 
Who drew the heart of this frail Universe 
Towards thine own ; till, wreckt in that convulsion, 
Alternating attraction and repulsion, 
Thine went astray, and that was rent in twain ; 
Oh, float into our azure heaven again ! 
Be there love's folding-star at thy return ; 
The living sun will feed thee from its urn 
Of golden fire ; the Moon Avill veil her horn 
In thy last smiles ; adoring Even and Morn 
Will worship thee with incense of calm breath 
And lights and shadows ; as the star of Death 

d 2 



52 EPIPSYCHIDION. 

And Birth is worshipp'd by those sisters wild 
Called Hope and Fear — upon the heart are piled 
Their offerings, — of this sacrifice divine 
A World shall be the altar. 

Lady mine, 
Scorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth 
Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth, 
Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes, 
Will be as of the trees of Paradise. 

The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me. 
To whatsoe'er of dull mortality 
Is mine, remain a vestal sister still ; 
To the intense, the deep, the imperishable, 
Not mine, but me, henceforth be thou united 
Even as a bride, delighting and delighted. 
The hour is come : — the destined Star has risen 
Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. 
The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set 
The sentinels — but true love never yet 
Was thus constrained : it overleaps all fence : 
Like lightning, with invisible violence 
Piercing its continents : like Heaven's free breath, 
Which he who grasps can hold not ; liker Death, 
Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way 
Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array 
Of arms : more strength has Love than he or they ; 
For he can burst his eharnel, and make free 
The limbs in chains, the heart in agony, 
The soul in dust and chaos. 

Emily, 
A ship is floating in the harbour now, 
A wiud is hovering o'er the mountain's brow ; 
There is a path on the sea's azure floor, 
No keel has ever ploughed that path before ; 
The halcyons brood around the foamless isles ; 
The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles ; 



EPIPSYCHIDION. 

The merry marinei's are bold and free : 

Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me ? 

Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest 

Is a far Eden of the purple East ; 

And we between her wings will sit, while Night, 

And Day, and Storai, and Calm, pursue their flight, 

Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, 

Treading each other's heels, unheededly. 

It is an isle under Ionian skies, 

Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise, 

And, for the harbours are not safe and good, 

Tins land would have remained a solitude 

But for some pastoral people native there, 

Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air 

Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, 

Simple and spirited ; innocent and bold. 

The blue yEgean girds this chosen home, 

With ever-changing sound and light and foam, 

Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar ; 

And all the winds wandering along the shore 

Undulate with the undulating tide : 

There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide ; 

And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, 

As clear as elemental diamond, 

Or serene morning air ; and far beyond, 

The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer 

(Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year,) 

Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls 

Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls 

Illumining, with sound that never fails, 

Accompany the noonday nightingales ; 

And all the place is peopled with sweet airs ; 

The light clear element which the isle wears 

Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers, 

Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers, 

And falls upon the eye-lids like faint sleep ; 

And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, 

And dart their arrowy odour through the brain 

Till you might faint with that delicious pain. 



54 EPIPSYCHIDIOX. 

And every motion, odour, beam, and tone, 

With that deep music is in unison : 

Which is a soul within the soul — they seem 

Like echoes of an antenatal dream. — 

It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea, 

Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity ; 

Bright as that wandering Eden Lucifer, 

Washed by the soft blue Oceans of young air. 

It is a favoured place. Famine or Blight, 

Pestilence, War, and Earthquake, never light 

Upon its mountain-peaks ; blind vultures, they 

Sail onward far upon their fatal way : 

The winged storms, chaunting then' thunder-psalm 

To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm 

Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, 

From which its fields and woods ever renew 

Then' green and golden immortality. 

And from the sea there rise, and from the sky 

There fall clear exhalations, soft and bright, 

Veil after veil, each hiding some delight. 

Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside, 

Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride 

Glowing at once with love and loveliness, 

Blushes and trembles at its own excess : 

Vet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less 

Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, 

An atom of the Eternal, whose own smile 

Unfolds itself, and may be felt not seen 

O'er the grey rocks, blue waves, and forests green, 

Filling their bare and void interstices. — 

But the chief marvel of the wilderness 

Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how 

None of the rustic island-people know ; 

'Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height 

It overtops the woods ; but, for delight, 

Some wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime 

Had been invented, in the world's young prime, 

Reared it, a wonder of that simple time, 

An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house 



EPIPSYCHIDIOX. 5f. 

Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. 

It scarce seems now a wreck of human art, 

But, as it were, Titanic ; in the heart 

Of Earth having assumed its form, then grown 

Out of the mountains, from the living stone, 

Lifting itself in caverns light and high : 

For all the antique and learned imagery 

Has been erased, and in the place of it 

The ivy and the wild vine interknit 

The volumes of their many-twining stems ; 

Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems 

The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky 

Peeps through their winter- woof of tracery 

With moonlight patches, or star atoms keen, 

Or fragments of the day's intense serene ; 

Working mosaic on their Parian floors. 

And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers 

And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem 

To sleep ha one another's arms, and dream 

Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we 

Read in their smiles, and call reality. 

This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed 
Thee to be lady of the solitude. 
And I have fitted up some chambers there 
Looking towards the golden Eastern ah', 
And level with the living winds, which flow 
Like waves above the living waves below. 
I have sent books and music there, and all 
Those instruments with which high spirits call 
The future from its cradle, and the past 
Out of its grave, and make the present last 
In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, 
Folded within their own eternity. 
Our simple life wants little, and true taste 
Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste 
The scene it would adorn, and therefore still, 
Nature, with all her children, haunts the hill. 
The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet 



55 EPIPSYCHIDION. 

Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit 

Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance 

Between the quick bats in their twilight dance ; 

The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight 

Before our gate, and the slow silent night 

Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. 

Be this our home in life, and when years heap 

Their withered hours, like leaves, on our decay, 

Let us become the overhanging day, 

The living soul of this Elysian isle, 

Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile 

We two will rise, and sit, and walk together, 

Under the roof of blue Ionian weather, 

And wander in the meadows, or ascend 

The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend 

With lightest winds, to touch their paramour ; 

Or linger, where the pebble-paven shore, 

the quick faint kisses of the sea 
Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy, — 
Possessing and possest by all that is 
Within that calm circumference of bliss, 
And by each other, till to love and live 
Be one : — or, at the noontide hour, arrive 
Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep 
The moonlight of the expired night asleep, 
Through which the awakened day can never peep ; 
A veil for our seclusion, close as Night's, 
Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights ; 
Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain 
Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again 
And we will talk, until thought's melody 
Become too sweet for utterance, and it die 
In words, to live again in looks, which dart 
With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart, 
Harmonising silence without a sound. 
Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound. 
And our veins beat together ; and our lips, 
With other eloquence than words, eclipse 
The soul that burns between them ; and the wells 



EPIPSYCIIIDION. 

Which boil under our being's inmost cells, 

The fountains of our deepest life, shall be 

Confused hi passion's golden purity, 

As mountain-springs under the morning Sun. 

We shall become the same, we shall be one 

Spirit within two frames, oh ! wherefore two ? 

One passion in twin- hearts, which grows and grew 

Till like two meteors of expanding flame, 

Those spheres instinct with it become the same, 

Touch, mingle, are transfigured ; ever still 

Burning, yet ever inconsumable : 

In one another's substance finding food, 

Like flames too pure and light and unimbued 

To nourish their bright lives with baser prey, 

Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away : 

One hope within two wills, one will beneath 

Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death, 

One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality, 

And one annihilation. Woe is me ! 

The winged words on which my soul would pierce 

Into the height of love's rare Universe, 

Are chains of lead around its flight of fire. — 

I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire ! 



Weak verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign's feet, 
And say : — " We are the masters of thy slave ; 
What wouldest thou with us and ours and thine ?" 
Then call your sisters from Oblivion's cave, 
All singing loud : " Love's very pain is sweet, 
But its reward is in the world divine, 
Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave." 
So shall ye five when I am there. Then haste 
Over the hearts of men, until ye meet 
Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest, 
And bid them love each other, and be blest : 
And leave the troop which errs, and which reprove 
And come and be my guest, — for I am Love's. 

d 3 



JULIAN AND MADDALO: 

A CONVERSATION. 



The meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme. 
The gouts with the green leaves of budding spring, 
Are saturated not— nor Love with tears. 

Virgil's Gallus. 



I rode one evening with Count Maddalo 

Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow 

Of Adria towards Venice : a bare strand 

Of hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand, 

Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds, 

Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds, 

Is this, an uninhabited sea-side, 

Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried, 

Abandons ; and no other object breaks 

The waste, but one dwarf tree and some few stakes 

Broken and unrepaired, and the tide makes 

A narrow space of level sand thereon, 

Where 'twas our wont to ride while day went down. 

This ride was my delight. I love all waste 

And solitary places ; where we taste 

The pleasure of believing what we see 

Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be : 

And such was this wide ocean, and this shore 

More barren than its billows : and yet more 

Than all, with a remembered friend I love 

To ride as then I rode ; — for the winds drove 

The firing spray along the sunny air 

Into our faces ; the blue heavens were bare, 



JULIAN AXD MADDALO. 5 

Stripped to their depths by the awakening north ; 
And, from the waves, sound like delight broke forth 
Harmonizing with solitude, and sent 
Into our hearts aerial merriment. 

So, as we rode, we talked ; and the swift thought, 
Winging itself with laughter, lingered not, 
But flew from brain to brain, — such glee was ours, 
Charged with light memories of remembered hours, 
None slow enough for sadness : till we came 
Homeward, which always makes the spirit tame. 
This day had been cheerful but cold, and now 
The sun was sinking, and the wind also. 
Our talk grew somewhat serious, as may be 
Talk interrupted with such raillery 
As mocks itself, because it cannot scorn 
The thoughts it would extinguish : — 'twas forlorn. 
Yet pleasing ; such as once, so poets tell, 
The devils held within the dales of hell, 
Concerning God, freewill, and destiny. 
Of all that Earth has been, or yet may be ; 
All that vain men imagine or believe, 
Or hope can paint, or suffering can achieve, 
We descanted ; and I (for ever still 
Is it not wise to make the best of ill ?) 
Argued against despondency ; but pride 
Made my companion take the darker side. 
The sense that he was greater than his kind 
Had struck, methinks, his eagle spirit blind 
By gazing on its own exceeding light. 
Meanwhile the sun paused ere it should alight 
Over the horizon of the mountains — Oh ! 
How beautiful is sunset, when the glow 
Of heaven descends upon a land like thee, 
Thou paradise of exiles, Italy ! 

Thy mountains, seas, and vineyards, and the towers, 
Of cities they encircle ! — It was ours 
To stand on thee, beholding it : and then, 
Just where we had dismounted, the Count's men 



60 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 

Were waiting for us with a gondola. 

As those who pause on some delightful way, 

Though bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood 

Looking upon the evening and the flood, 

Which lay between the city and the shore, 

Paved with the image of the sky : the hoar 

And airy Alps, towards the north, appeared, 

Thro' mist, a heaven-sustaining bulwark, reared 

Between the east and west ; and half the sky 

Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry, 

Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew 

Down the steep west into a wondrous hue 

Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent 

Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent 

Among the many-folded hills — they were 

Those famous Euganean hills, which bear, 

As seen from Lido through the harbour piles, 

The likeness of a clump of peaked isles — 

And then, as if the earth and sea had been 

Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen 

Those mountains towering, as from waves of flame, 

Around the vaporous sun, from which there came 

The inmost purple spirit of light, and made 

Their very peaks transparent. " Ere it fade," 

Said my companion, " 1 will show you soon 

A better station." So, o'er the lagune 

We glided ; and from that funereal bark 

I leaned, and saw the city, and could mark 

How from their many isles, in evening's gleam, 

Its temples and its palaces did seem 

Like fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven. 

1 was about to speak, when — " We are even 

Now at the point I meant," said Maddalo, 

And bade the gondolieri cease to row. 

" Look, Julian, on the west, and listen well 

If you hear not a deep and heavy bell." 

I looked, and saw between us and the sun 

A building on an island, such a one 

As age to age might add, for uses vile, — 



JULIAN AND MADDALO. fi 

A windowlesSj deformed, and dreary pile ; 

And on the top an open tower, where hung 

A bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung, 

We could just hear its coarse and iron tongue : 

The broad sun sank behind it, and it tolled 

In strong and black relief — " What we behold 

Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower," — 

Said Maddalo ; " and even at this hour, 

Those who may cross the water hear that bell, 

Which caUs the maniacs, each one from his cell, 

To vespers." — " As much skill as need to pray, 

In thanks or hope for then- dark lot have they, 

To their stem maker," I replied. — a O, ho ! 

You talk as in years past," said Maddalo. 

" 'Tis strange men change not. You were ever still 

Among Christ's flock a perilous infidel, 

A wolf for the meek lambs : if you can't swim, 

Beware of Providence." I looked on him, 

But the gay smile had faded from his eye. 

" And such," he cried, " is our mortality ; 

And this must be the emblem and the sign 

Of what should be eternal and divine ; 

And like that black and dreary bell, the soul, 

Hung in a heaven-illumined tower, must toll 

Our thoughts and our desires to meet below 

Round the rent heart, and pray — as madmen do ;•■ 

For what ? they know not, till the night of death, 

As sunset that strange vision, severeth 

Our memory from itself, and us from all 

We sought, and yet were baffled." I recall 

The sense of what he said, although I mar 

The force of his expressions. The broad star 

Of day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill ; 

And the black bell became invisible ; 

And the red tower looked grey ; and all between, 

The churches, ships, and palaces, were seen 

Huddled in gloom ; into the purple sea 

The orange hues of heaven sunk silently. 

We hardly spoke, and soon the gondola 

Conveyed me to my lodging by the way. 



62 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 

The following morn was rainy, cold, and dim : 
Ere Maddalo arose T called on him, 
And whilst I waited with his child I played ; 
A lovelier toy sweet Nature never made ; 
A serious, subtle, wild, yet gentle being ; 
Graceful without design, and unforeseeing ; 
With eyes — Oh ! speak not of her eyes ! which seem 
Twin mirrors of Italian Heaven, yet gleam 
With such deep meaning as we never see 
But in the human countenance. With me 
She was a special favourite : I had nursed 
Her fine and feeble limbs, when she came first 
To this bleak world ; and yet she seemed to know 
On second sight her ancient playfellow, 
Less changed than she was by six months or so. 
For, after her first shyness was worn out, 
We sate there, rolling billiard balls about, 
When the Count entered. Salutations passed : 
" The words you spoke last night might well have cast 
A darkness on my spirit : — if man be 
The passive thing you say, I should not see 
Much harm in the religions and old saws, 
(Tho' / may never own such leaden laws) 
Which break a teachless nature to the yoke : 
Mine is another faith." — Thus much I spoke, 
And, noting he replied not, added — u See 
This lovely child ; blithe, innocent, and free ; 
She spends a happy time, with little care ; 
While we to such sick thoughts subjected are, 
As came on you last night. It is our will 
Which thus enchains us to permitted ill. 
We might be otherwise ; we might be all 
We dream of, happy, high, majestical. 
Where is the beauty, love, and truth, we seek, 
But in our minds I And, if we were not weak, 
Should we be less in deed than in desire \ " 
— " Ay, if we were not weak, — and we aspire, 
How vainly ! to be strong," said Maddalo ; 
" You talk Utopian " — 



JULIAN AND 3IADDAL0. 

"It remains to know," 
I then rejoined, " and those who try, may find 
How strong the chains are which our spirit hind : 
Brittle perchance as straw. We are assured 
Much may he conquered, much may he endured, 
Of what degrades and crushes us. We know 
That we have power over ourselves to do 
And suffer — what, we know not till we try ; 
But something nobler than to five and die : 
So taught the kings of old philosophy, 
Who reigned before religion made men blind ; 
And those who suffer with their suffering kind, 
Yet feel this faith, religion." 

" My dear friend." 
Said Maddalo, " my judgment will not bend 
To your opinion, though I think you might 
Make such a system refutation-tight, 
As far as words go. I knew one like you, 
Who to this city came some months ago, 
With whom I argued in this sort, — and he 
Is now gone mad — and so he answered me, 
Poor fellow ! — But if you would like to go, 
We '11 visit him, and his wild talk will show 
How vain are such aspiring theories." — 

u I hope to prove the induction otherwise, 
And that a want of that true theory still, 
Which seeks a soul of goodness in things ill, 
Or in himself or others, has thus bowed 
His being : — there are some by nature proud, 
Who, patient in all else, demand but this — 
To love and be beloved with gentleness : — 
And being scorned, what wonder if they die 
Some living death ? This is not destiny, 
But man's own wilful ill." 

As thus I spoke, 
Servants announced the gondola, and we 
Through the fast-falling rain and high-wrought sea 



64 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 

Sailed to the island where the madhouse stands. 
We disembarked. The clap of tortured hands, 
Fierce yells and bowlings, and lamentings keen, 
And laughter where complaint had merrier been, 
Accosted us. We climbed the oozy stairs 
Into an old court-yard. I heard on high, 
Then, fragments of most touching melody, 
But looking up saw not the singer there. — 
Thro' the black bars in the tempestuous air 
I saw, like weeds on a wrecked palace growing, 
Long tangled locks flung wildly forth and flowing, 
Of those on a sudden who were beguiled 
Into strange silence, and looked forth and smiled, 
Hearing sweet sounds. Then I : 

" Methinks there were 
A cure of these with patience and kind care, 
If music can thus move. But what is he, 
Whom we seek In ; 

" Of his sad history 
1 know but this," said Maddalo : "he came 
To Venice a dejected man, and fame 
Said he was wealthy, or he had been so. 
Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe ; 
But he was ever talking in such sort 

I >, — but more sadly ;— he seemed hurt, 
Even as a man with his peculiar wrong, 
To hear but of the oppression of the strong, 
Or those absurd deceits (I think with you 
J n some respects, you know) which carry through 
The excellent impostors of this earth 
When they outface detection. He had worth, 
Poor fellow ! but a humourist in his way. 1 ' — 

— " Alas, what drove him mad I " 

u I cannot say : 
A lady came with him from France, and when 
She left Mm and returned, he wandered then 



JULIAN AND MADDALO. 65 

About yon lonely isles of desert sand, 

Till he grew wild. He had no cash nor land 

Remaining : — the police had brought him here — 

Some fancy took him, and he would not bear 

Removal, so I fitted up for him 

Those rooms beside the sea, to please his whim ; 

And sent him busts, and books, and urns for flowers, 

Which had adorned his fife in happier hours, 

And instruments of music. You may guess 

A stranger could do little more or less 

For one so gentle and unfortunate — 

And those are his sweet strains which charm the weight 

From madmen's chains, and make this hell appear 

A heaven of sacred silence, hushed to hear." 

" Nay, this was kind of you, — he had no claim. 
As the world says." 

u None but the very same 
Which I on all mankind, were I, as he, 
Fallen to such deep reverse. His melody 
Is interrupted now : we hear the din 
Of madmen, shriek on shriek, again begin : 
Let us now visit him : after this strain, 
He ever communes with himself again, 
And sees and hears not any." 

Having said 
These words, we called the keeper, and he led 
To an apartment opening on the sea — 
There the poor wretch was sitting mournfully 
Near a piano, his pale fingers twined 
One with the other ; and the ooze and wind 
Rushed through an open casement, and did sway 
His hair, and starred it with the brackish spray : 
His head was leaning on a music-book, 
And he was muttering : and his lean limbs shook, 
His lips were pressed against a folded leaf, 
In hue too beautiful for health, and grief 



65 JULIAN AND 3IADDAL0. 

Smiled in their motions as they lay apart, 

As one who wrought from his own fervid heart 

The eloquence of passion : soon he raised 

His sad meek face, and eyes lustrous and glazed, 

And spoke, — sometimes as one who wrote, and thought 

His words might move some heart that heeded not, 

If sent to distant lands ; — and then as one 

Reproaching deeds never to be undone, ' 

With wondering self-compassion ;— then his speech 

Was lost in grief, and then his words came each 

Unmodulated and expressionless, — 

But that from one jarred accent you might guess 

It was despair made them so uniform : 

And all the while the loud and gusty storm 

Hissed through the window, and we stood behind, 

Stealing his accents from the envious wind, 

Unseen. I yet remember what he said 

Distinctly, such impression his words made. 

" Month after month," he cried, " to bear this load, 
And, as a jade urged by the whip and goad, 
To drag life on — which like a heavy chain 
Lengthens behind with many a link of pain, 
And not to speak my grief — 0, not to dare 
To give a human voice to my despair ; 
But live, and move, and, wretched thing ! smile on, 
As if I never went aside to groan, 
And wear this mask of falsehood even to those 
Who are most dear — not for my own repose. 
Alas ! no scorn, nor pain, nor hate, could be 
So heavy as that falsehood is to me — 
But that I cannot bear more altered faces 
Than needs must be, more changed and cold embraces, 
More misery, disappointment, and mistrust, 
To own me for their father. Would the dust 
Were covered in upon my body now ! 
That the life ceased to toil within my brow ! 
And then these thoughts would at the last be fled : 
Let us not fear such pain can vex the dead, 



JULIAN AND MADDALO. 

" What Power delights to torture us I I know 
That to myself I do not wholly owe 
What now I suffer, though hi part I may. 
"Alas ! none strewed fresh flowers upon the way 
Where, wandering heedlessly, I met pale Pain, 
My shadow, which will leave me not again. 
If I have erred, there was no joy in error, 
But pain, and insult, and unrest, and terror ; 
I have not, as some do, bought penitence 
With pleasure, and a dark yet sweet offence : 
For then if love, and tenderness, and truth, 
Had overlived Hope's momentaxy youth, 
My creed should have redeemed me from repenting 
But loathed scorn and outrage unrelenting 
Met love excited by far other seeming 
Until the end was gained : — as one from dreaming 
Of sweetest peace, I woke, and found my state 
Such as it is — 

" thou, my spirit's mate ! 
Who, for thou art compassionate and wise, 
Wouldst pity me from thy most gentle eyes 
If this sad writing thou shouldst ever see ; 
My secret groans must be unheard by thee ; 
Thou wouldst weep tears, bitter as blood, to know 
Thy lost friend's incommunicable woe. 
Ye few by whom my nature has been weighed 
In friendship, let me not that name degrade, 
By placing on your hearts the secret load 
Which crushes mine to dust. There is one road 
To peace, and that is truth, which follow ye ! 
Love sometimes leads astray to misery. 
Yet think not, though subdued (and I may well 
Say that I am subdued) — that the full hell 
Within me would infect the untainted breast 
Of sacred nature with its own unrest ; 
As some perverted beings think to find 
In scorn or hate a medicine for the mind 
Which scorn or hate hath wounded. — 0, how vain ! 



63 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 

The dagger heals not, but may rend again. 

Believe that I am ever still the same 

In creed as in resolve ; and what may tame 

My heart, must leave the understanding free, 

Or all would sink under this agony. — 

Nor dream that I will join the vulgar eye, 

Or with my silence sanction tyranny, 

Or seek a moment's shelter from my pain 

In any madness which the world calls gain ; 

Ambition, or revenge, or thoughts as stern 

As those which make me what I am, or turn 

To avarice, or misanthropy, or lust : 

Heap on me soon, O grave, thy welcome dust ! 

Till then the dungeon may demand its prey ; 

And Poverty and Shame may meet and say, 

Halting beside me in the public way, — 

' That love-devoted youth is ours : let 's sit 

Beside him : he may live some six months yet.' — 

Or the red scaffold, as our country bends, 

May ask some willing victim ; or ye, friends, 

May fall under some sorrow, which this heart 

Or hand may share, or vanquish, or avert ; 

I am prepared, in truth, with no proud joy, 

To do or suffer aught, as when a boy 

I did devote to justice, and to love, 

My nature, worthless now. 

" I must remove 
A veil from my pent mind. 'Tis torn aside ! 

! pallid as death's dedicated bride, 

Thou mockery which art sitting by my side, 
Am I not wan like thee X At the grave's call 

1 haste, invited to thy wedding-ball, 

To meet the ghastly paramour, for whom 

Thou hast deserted me, — and made the tomb 

Thy bridal bed. But I beside thy feet 

Will lie, and watch ye from my winding-sheet 

Thus— wide awake though dead — Yet stay, 0, stay ! 

Go not so soon — I know not what I say — 



JULIAN AND MADDALO. 

Hear but my reasons — I am mad, I fear, 
My fancy is o'erwrought — thou art not here, 

Pale art thou 'tis most true but thou art gone— 

Thy work is finished ; I am left alone. 



u Nay was it I who woo'd thee to this breast 

Which like a serpent thou envenomest 

As in repayment of the warmth it lent ? 

Didst thou not seek me for thine own content ? 

Did not thy love awaken mine ? I thought 

That thou wert she who said ' You kiss me not 

Ever ; I fear you do not love me now.' 

In truth I loved even to my overthrow 

Her who would fain forget these words, but they 

Cling to her mind, and cannot pass away. 

" You say that I am proud ; that when I speak, 

My lip is tortured with the wrongs, which break 

The spirit it expresses. — Never one 

Humbled himself before, as I have done ; 

Even the instinctive worm on which we tread 

Turns, though it wound not — then, with prostrate head, 

Sinks in the dust, and writhes like me — and dies : 

No : — wears a living death of agonies ; 

As the slow shadows of the pointed grass 
Mark the eternal periods, its pangs pass, 
Slow, ever-moving, making moments be 
As mine seem, — each an immortality ; 

******* 
" That you had never seen me ! never heard 
My voice ! and more than all had ne'er endured 
The deep pollution of my loathed embrace ; 
That your eyes ne'er had lied love in my face ! 
That, like some maniac monk, I had torn out 
The nerves of manhood by their bleeding root 
With mine own quivering fingers ! so that ne'er 
Our hearts had for a moment mingled there, 



70 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 

To disunite in horror ! These were not 

With thee like some suppressed and hideous thought, 

Which flits athwart our musings, but can find 

No rest within a pure and gentle mind — 

Thou sealedst them with many a bare broad word, 

And sear'dst my memory o'er them, — for I heard 

And can forget not — they were ministered, 

One after one, those curses. Mix them up 

Like self-destroying poisons in one cup ; 

And they will make one blessing, which thou ne'er 

Didst imprecate for on me death ! 

" It were 
A cruel punishment for one most cruel, 
If such can love, to make that love the fuel 
Of the mind's hell — hate, scorn, remorse, despair : 
But me, whose heart a stranger's tear might wear 
As water-drops the sandy fountain stone ; 
Who loved and pitied all things, and could moan 
For woes which others hear not, and could see 
The absent with the glass of phantasy, 
And near the poor and trampled sit and weep, 
Following the captive to his dungeon deep ; 
3fe, who am as a nerve o'er which do creep 
The else-unfelt oppressions of this earth, 
And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth, 
When all beside was cold : — that thou on me 
Should rain these plagues of blistering agony — 
Such curses are from lips once eloquent 
With love's too partial praise ! Let none relent 
Who intend deeds too dreadful for a name 
Henceforth, if an example for the same 
They seek : — for thou on me lookedst so and so, 
And didst speak thus and thus. I live to show 
How much men bear and die not. 



" Thou wilt tell, 
With the grimace of hate, how horrible 



JULIAN AND MADDALO. 71 

It was to meet my love when thine grew less ; 

Thou wilt admire how I could e'er address 

Such features to love's work .... This taunt, though 

true, 
(For indeed Nature nor in form nor hue 
Bestowed on me her choicest workmanship) 
Shall not be thy defence : for since thy life 
Met mine first, years long past, — since thine eye kindled 
With soft fire under mine, — I have not dwindled, 
Nor changed hi mind, or body, or hi aught 
But as love changes what it loveth not 
After long years and many trials. 



" How vain 
Are words ; I thought never to speak again, 
Not even in secret, not to my own heart — 
But from my lips the unwilling accents start, 
And from my pen the words flow as I write, 
Dazzling my eyes with scalding tears — my sight 
Is dim to see that charactered in vain, 
On this unfeeling leaf, which burns the brain 
And eats into it, blotting all tilings fair, 
And wise and good, which time had written there. 
Those who inflict must suffer, for they see 
The work of their own hearts, and that must be 
Our chastisement or recompense. — O child ! 
I would that thine were like to be more mild 
For both our wretched sakes, — for thine the most, 
Who feel'st already all that thou hast lost, 
Without the power to wish it thine again. 
And, as slow years pass, a funereal train, 
Each with the ghost of some lost hope or friend 
Following it like its shadow, wilt thou bend 
No thought on my dead memory % 



" Alas, love ! 
Fear me not : against thee I'd not move 



72 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 

A finger in despite. Do I not live 

That thou mayst have less bitter cause to grieve ? 

I give thee tears for scorn, and love for hate ; 

And, that thy lot may he less desolate 

Than his on whom thou tramplest, I refrain 

From that sweet sleep which medicines all pain. 

Then — when thou speakest of me — never say, 

i He could forgive not.' — Here I cast away 

All human passions, all revenge, all pride ; 

I think, speak, act no ill ; I do but hide 

Under these words, like embers, every spark 

Of that which has consumed me. Quick and dark 

The grave is yawning : — as its roof shall cover 

My limbs with dust and worms, under and over, 

So let oblivion hide this grief. — The air 

Closes upon my accents as despair 

Upon my heart — let death upon my care !" 

He ceased, and overcome, leant back awhile ; 
Then rising, with a melancholy smile, 
Went to a sofa, and lay down, and slept 

\ v sleep, and in his dreams he wept, 
And muttered some familiar name, and we 
Wept without shame in his society. 
I think I never was impressed so much ! 
The man, who was not, must have lacked a touch 
Of human nature. — Then we lingered not, 
Although our argument was cmite forgot ; 
But, calling the attendants, went to dine 
At Maddalo's ; — yet neither cheer nor wine 
Could give us spirits, for we talked of him, 
And nothing else, till daylight made stars dim. 
And we agreed it was some dreadful ill 
Wrought on him boldly, yet unspeakable, 
By a dear friend ; some deadly change in love 
Of one vowed deeply which he dreamed not of ; 
For whose sake he, it seemed, had fixed a blot, 
Of falsehood in his mind, which flourished not 
But in the light of all-beholding truth ; 



JULIAN AND MADDALO. 

And having stamped this canker on his youth, 
She had abandoned him : — and how much more 
Might be his woe, we guessed not ; — he had store 
Of friends and fortune once, as we could guess 
From his nice habits and his gentleness : 
These now were lost — it were a grief indeed 
If he had changed one unsustaining reed 
For all that such a man might else adorn. 
The colours of his mind seemed yet unworn ; 
For the wild language of his grief was high — 
Such as in measure were called poetry. 
And I remember one remark, which then 
Maddalo made : he said — " Most wretched men 
Are cradled into poetry by wrong : 
They learn in suffering what they teach in song." 

If I had been an unconnected man, 
I, from the moment, should have formed some plan 
Never to leave sweet Venice : for to me 
It was delight to ride by the lone sea : 
And then the town is silent — one may write 
Or read in gondolas, by day or night, 
Having the little brazen lamp alight, 
Unseen, uninterrupted : — books are there, 
Pictures, and casts from all those statues fair 
Which were twin-born with poetry ! — and all 
We seek in towns, with little to recall 
Regret for the green country : — I might sit 
In Maddalo's great palace, and his wit 
And subtle talk would cheer the winter night, 
And make me know myself : — and the fire light 
Would flash upon our faces, till the day 
Might dawn, and make me wonder at my stay. 
But I had friends in London too. The chief 
Attraction here was that I sought relief 
From the deep tenderness that maniac wrought 
Within me — 'twas perhaps an idle thought, 
But I imagined that if, day by day, 
I watched him, and seldom went away, 



74 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 

And studied all the beatings of his heart 

With zeal, as men study some stubborn art 

For their own good, and could by patience find 

An entrance to the caverns of his mind, 

I might reclaim him from his dark estate. 

In friendships I had been most fortunate, 

Yet never saw I one whom I would call 

More willingly my friend : — and tins was all 

Accomplished not ; — such dreams of baseless good 

Oft come and go, in crowds or solitude, 

And leave no trace ! — but what I now designed 

Made, for long years, impression on my mind. 

The following morning urged by my affairs, 

I left bright Venice. 

After many years, 
And many changes, I returned : the name 
Of Venice, and its aspect was the same ; 
But Maddalo was travelling, far away, 
Among the mountains of Armenia. 
His dog was dead : his child had now become 
A woman, such as it has been my doom 
To meet with few ; a wonder of this earth, 
Where there is little of transcendent worth, — 
Like one of Shakspeare's women. Kindly she, 
And with a manner beyond courtesy, 
Received her father's friend ; and, when I asked, 
Of the lorn maniac, she her memory tasked, 
And told, as she had heard, the mournful tale : 
" That the poor sufferer's health began to fail 
Two years from my departure : but that then 
The lady, who had left him, came again, 
Her mien had been imperious, but she now 
Looked meek ; perhaps remorse had brought her low. 
Her coming made him better ; and they stayed 
Together at my father's, — for I played, 
As I remember, with the lady's shawl ; 
I might be six years old : — But, after all, 
She left him." — 



JULIAN AND MADDALO. 75 

" Why hex* heart must have been tough ; 
How did it eud ? " 

" And was not this enough ? 
They met, they parted." 

" Child, is there no more ? " 

"Something within that interval which bore 
The stamp of why they parted, how they met ; — 
Yet, if thine aged eyes disdain to wet 
Those wrinkled cheeks with youth's remembered tears, 
Ask me no more ; but let the silent years 
Be closed and cered over their memory, 
As yon mute marble where their corpses lie." 
I urged and questioned still : she told me how 
All happened — but the cold world shall not know. 



LINES 

WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 



f Many a green isle needs must be 
In the deep wide sea of misery, 
Or the mariner, worn and wan, 
Never thus could voyage on 
Day and night, and night and day, 
Drifting on his dreary way, 
With the solid darkness black 
Closing round his vessel's track ; 
Whilst above, the sunless sky, 
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 
And behind the tempest fleet 
Hurries on with lightning feet, 
Riving sail, and cord, and plank, 
Till the ship has almost drank 
Death from the o'er-brimming deep ; 
And sinks down, down, like that sleep 
When the dreamer seems to be 
Weltering through eternity ; 
And the dim low line before 
Of a dark and distant shore 
Still recedes, as ever still 
Longing with divided will ; 
But no power to seek or shun, 
He is ever drifted on 
O'er the unreposing wave, 
To the haven of the grave. 
What, if there no friends will greet ; 
What, if there no heart will meet 
His with love's impatient beat ; 



WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 

Wander wheresoe'er he may, 

Can he dream before that day 

To find refuge from distress 

In friendship's smile, in love's caress ? 

Then 'twill wreak him little woe 

Whether such there be or no : 

Senseless is the breast, and cold, 

Which relenting love would fold ; 

Bloodless are the veins and chill 

Which the pulse of pain did fill ; 

Every little living nerve 

That from bitter words did swerve 

Round the tortured lips and brow, 

Are like sapless leaflets now 

Frozen upon December's bough. 

On the beach of a northern sea 
Which tempests shake eternally, 
As once the wretch there lay to sleep, 
Lies a solitary heap, 
One white skull and seven dry bones, 
On the margin of the stones, 
Where a few grey rushes stand, 
Boundaries of the sea and land : 
Nor is heard one voice of wail 
But the sea-mews, as they sail 
O'er the billows of the gale ; 
Or the whirlwind up and down 
Howling, like a slaughtered town, 
When a king in glory rides 
Through the pomp of fratricides : 
Those unburied bones around 
There is many a mournful sound ; 
There is no lament for him, 
Like a sunless vapour, dim, 
Who once clothed with life and thought 
What now moves nor murmurs not. 

Ay, many flowering islands he 
In the waters of wide Agony : 



7« WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 

To such a one this morn was led 

My bark, by soft winds piloted. 

'Mid the mountains Euganean, 

I stood listening to the psean 

With which the legioned. rooks did hail 

The sun's uprise majestical ; 

Gathering round with wings all hoar, 

Through the dewy mist they soar 

Like grey shades, till the eastern heaven 

Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, 

Flecked with fire and azure, he 

In the unfathomable sky, 

So their plumes of purple grain, 

Starred with drops of golden rain, 

Gleam above the sunlight woods, 

As in silent multitudes 

On the morning's fitful gale 

Through the broken mist they sail ; 

And the vapours cloven and gleaming 

Follow down the dark steep streaming, 

Till all is bright, and clear, and still, 

Round the solitary hill. 

Beneath is spread like a green sea 
The waveless plain of Lombardy, 
Bounded by the vaporous air, 
Islanded by cities fair ; 
Underneath day's azure eyes, 
Ocean's nursling, Venice hes, — 
A peopled labyrinth of walls, 
Amphitrite's destined halls, 
Which her hoary sire now paves 
With his blue and beaming waves. 
Lo ! the sun upsprings behind, 
Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined 
On the level quivering line 
Of the waters crystalline ; 
And before that chasm of light, 
As within a furnace bright, 



Written among the etjganean hills. 

Column, tower, and dome, and spire, 
Shine like obelisks of fire, 
Pointing with inconstant motion 
From the altar of dark ocean 
To the sapphire-tinted skies ; 
As the flames of sacrifice 
From the marble shrines did rise 
As to pierce the dome of gold 
Where Apollo spoke of old, 
Sun-girt City ! thou hast been 
Ocean's child, and then his queen ; 
Now is come a darker day, 
And thou soon must be his prey, 
If the power that raised thee here 
Hallow so thy watery bier. 
A less drear ruin then than now, 
With thy conquest-branded brow- 
Stooping to the slave of slaves 
From thy throne among the waves, 
Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew 
Flies, as once before it flew, 
O'er thine isles depopulate, 
And all is in its ancient state, 
Save where many a palace-gate 
With green sea-flowers overgrown 
Like a rock of ocean's own, 
Topples o'er the abandon'd sea 
As the tides change sullenly. 
The fisher on his watery way, 
Wandering at the close of day, 
Will spread his sail and seize his oar, 
Till he pass the gloomy shore, 
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep 
Bursting o'er the starlight deep, 
Lead a rapid masque of death 
O'er the waters of his path. 

Those who alone thy towers behold 
Quivering through aerial gold, 



WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 

As I now behold them here, 
Would imagine not they were 
Sepulchres, where hum«.n forms, 
Like pollution-nourish'd worms, 
To the corpse of greatness cling, 
Murdered and now mouldering : 
But if Freedom should awake 
In her omnipotence, and shake 
From the Celtic Anarch's hold 
All the keys of dungeons cold, 
Where a hundred cities he 
Chained like thee, ingloriously, 
Thou and all thy sister band 
Might adorn this sunny land, 
Twining memories of old time 
With new virtues more sublime : 
If not, perish thou and they ; 
Clouds which stain truth's rising day 
By her sun consumed away, 
Earth can spare ye ; while like flowers, 
In the waste of years and hours, 
From your dust new nations spring 
With more kindly blossoming. 

Perish ! let there only be 
Floating o'er thy hearthless sea, 
As the garment of thy sky 
Clothes the world immortally, 
One remembrance, more sublime 
Than the tattered pall of Time, 
Which scarce hides thy visage wan : 
That a tempest-cleaving swan 
Of the songs of Albion, 
Driven from his ancestral streams, 
By the might of evil dreams, 
Found a nest in thee ; and Ocean 
Welcomed him with such emotion 
That its joy grew his, and sprung 
From his hps like music flung 



WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN UILL> 

O'er a mighty thunder-fit, 
ChasteniBg terror : what though yet 
Poesy's unfailing river. 
Which through Albion winds for ever, 
Lashing with melodious wave 
Many a sacred poet's grave, 
Mourn its latest nursling fled ! 
What though thou with all thy dead 
Scarce can for this fame repay 
Aught thine own, — oh, rather say, 
Though thy sins and slaveries foul 
Overcloud a sunlike soul ! 
As the ghost of Homer clings 
Round Scamander's wasting springs ; 
As divinest Shakspeare's might 
Fills Avon and the world with light, 
Like omniscient power, which he 
Imaged 'mid mortality; 
As the love from Petrarch's urn, 
Yet amid yon hills doth burn, 
A quenchless lamp, by which the heart 
Sees things unearthly ; so thou art, 
Mighty spirit : so shall be 
The city that did refuge thee, 

Lo, the sun floats up the sky, 
Like thought-winged Liberty, 
Till the universal light 
Seems to level plain and height ; 
From the sea a mist has spread, 
And the beams of morn he dead 
On the towers of Venice now, 
Like its glory long ago. 
By the skirts of that grey cloud 
Many-domed Padua proud 
Stands, a peopled solitude, 
'Mid the harvest shining plain, 
Where the peasant heaps his grain 
In the garner of his foe, 

E 3 



WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 

And the milk-white oxen slow 
With the purple vintage strain, 
Heaped upon the creaking wain, 
That the brutal Celt may swill 
Drunken sleep with savage will ; 
And the sickle to the sword 
Lies unchanged, though many a lord, 
Like a weed whose shade is poison, 
Overgrows this region's foison, 
Sheaves of whom are ripe to come 
To destruction's harvest-home : 
Men must reap the things they sow, 
Force from force must ever flow, 
Or worse ; but 'tis a bitter woe 
That love or reason cannot change 
The despot's rage, the slave's revenge. 

Padua, thou within whose Avails 
Those mute guests at festivals, 
Son and Mother, Death and Sin, 
Played at dice for Ezzelin, 
Till Death cried, " I Win, I win !" 
And Sin cursed to lose the wager, 
But Death promised, to assuage her, 
That he would petition for 
Her to be made Vice-Emperor, 
When the destined years were o'er, 
Over all between the Po 
And the eastern Alpine snow, 
Under the mighty Austrian. 
Sin smiled so as Sin only can, 
And since that time, ay, long before, 
Both have ruled from shore to shore, 
That incestuous pair, who follow 
Tyrants as the sun the swallow, 
As Repentance follows Crime, 
And as changes follow Time. 

In thine halls the lamp of learning, 
Padua, now no more is burning ; 



WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 

Like a meteor, whose wild way 

Is lost over the grave of day, 

It gleams betrayed and to betray : 

Once remotest nations came 

To adore that sacred flame, 

When it lit not many a hearth 

On this cold and gloomy earth ; 

Now new fires from Antique light 

Spring beneath the wide world's might ; 

But their spark lies dead in thee, 

Trampled out by tyranny. 

As the Norway woodman quells, 

In the depth of piny dells, 

One light flame among the brakes, 

While the boundless forest shakes, 

And its mighty trunks are torn 

By the fire thus lowly born ; 

The spark beneath his feet is dead, 

He starts to see the flames it fed 

Howling through the darkened sky 

With a myriad tongues victoriously, 

And sinks down in fear : so thou, 

O tyranny ! beholdest now 

Light around thee, and thou hearest 

The loud flames ascend, and fearest : 

Grovel on the earth ; ay, hide 

In the dust thy purple pride ! 

Noon descends around me now : 
5 Tis the noon of autumn's glow, 
When a soft and purple mist 
Like a vaporous amethyst, 
Or an air-dissolved star 
Mingling light and fragrance, far 
From the curved horizon's bound 
To the point of heaven's profound, 
Fills the overflowing sky ; 
And the plains that silent lie 
Underneath ; the leaves unsodden 



WRITTEN AMONG THE ETTGANEAN HILLS. 

Where the infant frost has trodden 

With his morning-winged feet, 

Whose bright print is gleaming yet ; 

And the red and golden vines, 

Piercing with their trellised lines 

The rough, dark-skirted wilderness ; 

The dun and bladed grass no less, 

Pointing from this hoary tower 

In the windless air ; the flower 

Glimmering at my feet ; the line 

Of the olive-sandalled Apennine 

In the south dimly islanded ; 

And the Alps, whose snows are spread 

High between the clouds and sun ; 

And of living things each one ;; 

And my spirit, which so long 

Darkened this swift stream of song, 

Interpenetrated lie 

3y the glory of the sky ; 

Be it love, hght, harmony, 

Odour, or the soul of all 

Which from heaven like dew doth fall, 

Or the mind which feeds this verse 

Peopling the lone universe. 

Noon descends, and after noon 

Autumn's evening meets me soon, 

Leading the infantine moon, 

And that one star, which to her 

Almost seems to minister 

Half the crimson hght she brings 

From the sunset's radiant springs : 

And the soft dreams of the morn 

(Which hke winged winds had borne 

To that silent isle, which lies 

'Mid remember'd agonies, 

The frail bark of this lone being), 

Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, 

And its ancient pilot, Pain, 

Sits beside the helm again. 



WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGAXEAN HILLS. 8.5 

Other flowering isles must be 
■ In the sea of life and agony : 
Other spirits float and flee 
O'er that gulf : even now, perhaps, 
On some rock the wild wave wraps, 
With folding wings they waiting sit 
For my bark, to pilot it 
To some calm and blooming cove, 
Where for me, and those I love, 
May a windless bower be built, 
Far from passion, pain, and guilt, 
In a dell mid lawny hills, 
Which the wild sea-murmur fills, 
And soft sunshine, and the sound 
Of old forests echoing round, 
And the light and smell divine 
Of all flowers that breathe and shine. 
We may five so happy there, 
That the spirits of the air, 
Envying us, may even entice 
To our healing paradise 
The polluting multitude ; 
But their rage would be subdued 
By that clime divine and calm, 
And the winds whose wings rain balm 
On the uplifted soul, and leaves 
Under which the bright sea heaves ; 
While each breathless interval 
In their whisperings musical 
The inspired soul supplies 
With its own deep melodies ; 
And the love which heals all strife 
Circling, like the breath of life, 
All things in that sweet abode 
With its own mild brotherhood. 
They, not it, would change ; and soon 
Every sprite beneath the moon 
Would repent its envy vain, 
And the earth grow young again, 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 



As I lay asleep in Italy, 
There came a voice from over the sea, 
And with great power it forth led me 
To walk in the visions of Poesy. 

ii. 
I met Murder on the way — 
He had a mask like Castlereagh — 
Very smooth he looked, yet grim ; 
Seven bloodhounds followed him : 



All were fat ; and well they might 

Be in admirable plight, 

For one by one, and two by two, 

He tossed them human hearts to chew, 

Which from his wide cloak he drew. 



Next came Fraud, and he had on, 

Like Lord E , an ermine gown ; 

His big tears, for he wept well, 
Turned to mill-stones as they fell ; 

v. 
And the little children, who 
Round his feet played to and fro, 
Thinking every tear a gem, 
Had their brains knocked out by them. 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 



Clothed with the bible as with light, 
And the shadow of the night, 
Like S * * * next, Hypocrisy, 
On a crocodile came by. 

VII. 

And many more Destructions played 
In this ghastly masquerade, 
All disguised, even to the eyes, 
Like bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies. 

vm. 
Last came Anarchy ; he rode 
On a white horse splashed with blood ; 
He was pale even to the lips, 
Like Death in the Apocalypse. 

IX. 

And he wore a kingly crown ; 
In his hand a sceptre shone ; 
On his brow this mark I saw — 
" I am God, and King, and Law !" 

X. 

With a pace stately and fast, 
Over English land he past, 
Trampling to a mire of blood 
The adoring multitude. 

XI. 

And a mighty troop around, 

With their trampling shook the ground, 

Waving each a bloody sword, 

For the service of their Lord. 



And, with glorious triumph, they 
Rode through England, proud and gay, 
Drunk as with intoxication 
Of the wine of desolation. 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 

XIII. 

O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea. 
Passed the pageant swift and free, 
Tearing up, and trampling down, 
Till they came to London town. 

XIV. 

And each dweller, panic-stricken, 
Felt his heart with terror sicken, 
Hearing the tremendous cry 
Of the triumph of Anarchy. 



For with pomp to meet him came, 
Clothed in arms like blood and flame, 
The hired murderers who did sing, 
" Thou art God, and Law, and King. 

XVI. 

" We have waited, weak and lone, 
For thy coming, Mighty One ! 
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold, 
Give us glory, and blood, and gold." 

XVII. 

Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd, 
To the earth their pale brows bowed, 
Like a bad prayer not over loud, 
Whispering — " Thou art Law and God ! " 

xvm. 
Then all cried with one accord, 
" Thou art King, and Law, and Lord ; 
Anarchy, to thee we bow, 
Be thy name made holy now !" 

XIX. 

And Anarchy, the skeleton, 
Bowed and grinned to every one, 
As well as if his education 
Had cost ten millions to the nation. 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 



For lie knew the palaces 
Of our kings were nightly his ; 
His the sceptre, crown, and globe, 
And the gold-inwoven robe. 

XXI. 

So he sent his slaves before 
To seize upon the Bank and Tower, 
And was proceeding with intent 
To meet his pensioned parliament, 

xxn. 
When one fled past, a maniac maid, 
And her name was Hope, she said : 
But she looked more like Despair ; 
And she cried out in the air : 

xxnr. 
" My father, Time is weak and grey 
With waiting for a better day ; 
See how idiot-like he stands, 
Trembling with his palsied hands ! 

XXIV. 

" He has had child after child, 
And the dust of death is piled 
Over every one but me — 
Misery ! oh, Misery ! " 

XXV. 

Then she lay down in the street, 
Right before the horses' feet, 
Expecting with a patient eye, 
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy. 

XXVI. 

When between her and her foes 
A mist, a light, an image rose, 
Small at first, and weak and frail 
Like the vapour of the vale : 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 



Till as clouds grow on the blast, 
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast, 
And glare with lightnings as they fly, 
And speak in thunder to the sky, 

XXVIII. 

It grew — a shape arrayed in mail 
Brighter than the viper's scale, 
And upborne on wings whose grain 
Was like the light of sunny rain. 

XXIX. 

On its helm, seen far away, 

A planet, like the morning's, lay ; 

And those plumes it light rained through, 

Like a shower of crimson dew. 

XXX. 

With step as soft as wind it passed 
O'er the heads of men — so fast 
That they knew the presence there, 
And looked — and all was empty air. 

XXXI. 

As flowers beneath May's footsteps waken, 
As stars from night's loose hair are shaken, 
As waves arise when loud winds call, 
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall. 

XXXII. 

And the prostrate multitude 
Looked — and ankle-deep in blood, 
Hope, that maiden most serene, 
Was walking with a quiet mien : 

XXXIII. 

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth, 

Lay dead earth upon the earth ; 

The Horse of Death, tameless as wind, 

Fled, and with his hoofs did grind 

To dust the murderers thronged behind. 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 



A rushing light of clouds and splendour, 
A sense, awakening and yet tender, 
Was heard and felt — and at its close 
These words of joy and fear arose : 

XXXV. 

As if then.- own indignant earth, 
Which gave the sons of England birth, 
Had felt their blood upon her brow, 
And shuddering with a mother's throe, 

xxxvr. 
Had turned every drop of blood, 
By which her face had been bedewed, 
To an accent unwithstood, 
As if her heart had cried aloud : 

XXXVII. 

" Men of England, Heirs of Glory, 
Heroes of unwritten story, 
Nurslings of one mighty mother, 
Hopes of her, and one another ! 

xxxvin. 
" Rise, like lions after slumber, 
In unvanquishable number, 
Shake your chains to earth like dew, 
Which in sleep had fall'n on you. 
Ye are many, they are few. 

XXXIX. 

" What is Freedom ? Ye can tell 
That which Slavery is too well, 
For its very name has grown 
To an echo of your own. 

XL. 

" 'Tis to work, and have such pay 
As just keeps life from day to day 
In your limbs as in a cell 
For the tyrants' use to dwell : 



2 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 

XLI. 

" So that ye for them are made, 

Loom, and plough, and sword, and sp* 
With or without your own will, bent 
To their defence and nourishment. 

xLir. 
" 'Tis to see your children weak 
With their mothers pine and peak, 
When the winter winds are bleak : — 
They are dying whilst I speak. 

xun. 
" 'Tis to hunger for such diet, 
As the rich man in his riot 
Casts to the fat dogs that lie 
Surfeiting beneath his eye. 

XLIV. 

" 'Tis to let the Ghost of Gold 
Take from toil a thousand-fold 
More than e'er its substance could 
In the tyrannies of old : 

XLV. 

" Paper coin — that forgery 
Of the title deeds, which ye 
Hold to something of the worth 
Of the inheritance of Earth. 

XLVI. 

" 'Tis to be a slave in soul, 
And to hold no strong controul 
Over your own wills, but be 
All that others make of ye. 

XLVII. 

" And at length when ye complain, 
With a niurmur weak and vain, 
'Tis to see the tyrant's crew 
Ride over your wives and you : — 
Blood is on the grass like dew ! 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 

XXVIII. 

" Then it is to feel revenge, 
Fiercely thirsting to exchange 
Blood for blood — and wrong for wrong : 
Do not thus when ye are strong ! 

XXIX. 

" Birds find rest in narrow nest, 
When weary of their winged quest ; 
Beasts find fare in woody lair, 
When storm and snow are in the air. 



" Horses, oxen, have a home, 

When from daily toil they come ; 
Household dogs, when the wind roars, 
Find a home within warm doors. 

LI, 

" Asses, swine, have fitter spread, 
And with fitting food are fed ; 
All things have a home hut one : 
Thou, O Englishman, hast none ! 

LII. 

" This is slavery — savage men, 
Or" wild beasts within a den,^ 
Would endure not as ye do : 
But such ills they never knew. 

Lift. 

" What art thou, Freedom ? Oh ! could slave 
Answer from their living graves 
This demand, tyrants would flee 
Like a dream's dim imagery, 

LIV. 

" Thou art not, as impostors say, 
A shadow soon to pass away, 
A superstition, and a name 
Echoing from the cave of Fame. 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 



" For the labourer thou art bread 
And a comely table spread, 
From his daily labour come, 
In a neat and happy home. 

LVI. 

" Thou art clothes, and fire, and food 
For the trampled multitude : 
No — in countries that are free 
Such starvation cannot be, 
As in England now we see. 

I. VII. 

" To the rich thou art a check ; 
When his foot is on the neck 
Of his victim, thou dost make 
That he treads upon a snake. 

I/VIII. 

" Thou art Justice — ne'er for gold 
May thy righteous laws be sold, 
As laws are in England : — thou 
Shieldest alike the high and low. 

LIX. 

" Thou art Wisdom — freemen never 
Dream that God will doom for ever 
All who think those things untrue, 
Of which priests make such ado. 

LX. 

" Thou art Peace — never by thee 

Would blood and treasure wasted be, 
As tyrants wasted them, when all 
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul. 

LXI. 

" What if English toil and blood 
Was poured forth, even as a flood \ 
It availed, — O Liberty ! 
To dim — but not extinguish thee. 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 



" Thou art Love — the rich have kist 

Thy feet ; and like him following Christ, 

Given their substance to the free, 

And through the rough world followed thee. 

LXIII. 

" Oh turn their wealth to arms, and make 
War for thy beloved sake, 
On wealth and war and fraud ; whence they 
Drew the power which is their prey. 

lxtv. 
" Science, and Poetry, and Thought, 
Are thy lamps ; they make the lot 
Of the dwellers in a cot 
Such, they curse their maker not, 

LXV. 

" Spirit, Patience, Gentleness, 
All that can adorn and bless, 
Art thou : let deeds, not words, express 
Thine exceeding loveliness. 

LXVI. 

" Let a great assembly be 
Of the fearless and the free, 
On some spot of English ground, 
Where the plains stretch wide around. 

LXVII. 

" Let the blue sky overhead, 

The green earth on which ye tread, 
All that must eternal be, 
Witness the solemnity. 

lxviii. 
" From the corners uttermost 
Of the bounds of English coast ; 
From every hut, village, and town, 
Where those who live and suffer, moan 
For others' misery, or their own : 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 



" From the workhouse and the prison, 
Where pale as corpses newly risen, 
Women, children, young, and old, 
Groan for pain, and weep for cold ; 

LXX. 

" From the haunts of daily life, 
Where is waged the daily strife 
With common wants and common cares, 
Which sow the human heart with tares. 

lxxi. 
" Lastly, from the palaces, 

Where the murmur of distress 
Echoes, like the distant sound 
Of a wind, alive around ; 

LXXII. 

" Those prison-halls of wealth and fashion, 
Where some few feel such compassion 
For those who groan, and toil, and wail, 
As must make their brethren pale ; 

LXXIII. 

" Ye who suffer woes untold, 
Or to feel, or to behold 
Your lost country bought and sold 
With a price of blood and gold. 

LXXIV. 

" Let a vast assembly be, 
And with great solemnity 
Declare with ne'er said words, that ye 
Are, as God has made ye, free . 

LXXV. 

" Be your strong and simple words 
Keen to wound as sharpened swords, 
And wide as targes let them be, 
With their shade to cover ye. 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 

Lxxvr. 
" Let the tyrants pour around 
With a quick and startling sound, 
Like the loosening of a sea, 
Troops of armed emblazonry. 

LXXVII. 

" Let the charged artillery drive, 
Till the dead air seems alive 
With the clash of clanging wheels, 
And the tramp of horses' heels. 

ixxvni. 
" Let the fixed bayonet 

Gleam with sharp desire to wet 
Its bright point in English blood, 
Looking keen as one for food. 

LXXIX. 

" Let the horsemen's scimitars 

Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars, 
Thirsting to eclipse their burning 
In a sea of death and mourning. 

LXXX. 

" Stand ye calm and resolute, 
Like a forest close and mute, 
With folded arms, and looks which are 
Weapons of an unvanquished war. 

LXXXI. 

" And let Panic, who outspeeds 
The career of armed steeds, 
Pass, a disregarded shade, 
Through your phalanx undismayed. 

LXXXII. 

" Let the laws of your own land, 
Good or ill, between ye stand, 
Hand to hand, and foot to foot, 
Arbiters of the dispute. 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 

LXXXIII. 

" The old laws of England — they 
Whose reverend heads with age are grey, 
Children of a wiser day ; 
And whose solemn voice must be 
Thine own echo — Liberty ! 

LXXXIV. 

" On those who first should violate 
Such sacred heralds in their state, 
Rest the blood that must ensue ; 
And it will not rest on you. 

JLXXXV. 

" And if then the tyrants dare, 
Let them ride among you there ; 
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew ; 
What they like, that let them do. 

LXXXVI. 

" With folded arms and steady eyes, 
And little fear, and less surprise, 
Look upon them as they slay, 
Till their rage has died away : 

lxxxvji. 
<l Then they will return with shame, 
To the place from which they came, 
And the blood thus shed will speak 
In hot blushes on their cheek : 

LXXXVIII. 

" Every woman in the land 
Will point at them as they stand — 
They will hardly dare to greet 
Their acquaintance in the street : 

LXXXIX. 

(i And the bold true warriors, 
Who have hugged danger in the wars, 
Will turn to those who would be free, 
Ashamed of such base company : 



THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 



" And that slaughter to the nation 
Shall steam up like inspiration, 
Eloquent, oracular, 
A volcano heard afar : 

xcr. 
" And these words shall then become 
Like Oppression's thundered doom, 
Ringing through each heart and brain, 
Heard again — again — again ! 

xcu. 
" Rise, like lions after slumber, 
In unvanquishable number ! 
Shake your chains to earth, like dew 
Which in sleep had fallen on you : 
Ye are many — they are few ! " 



ADONAIS ; 



AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS, 

AUTHOR OF E5DTMIOS, HTPBRION, ETC. 






PLATO. 



I weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 
Oh, weep for Adonais ! though our tears 
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head ! 
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years 
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 
And teach them thine own sorrow ; say : with m 
Died Adonais ; till the Future dares 
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 
An echo and a light unto eternity ! 



Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 
When thy son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies 
In darkness ? where was lorn Urania 
When Adonais died ? With veiled eyes, 
'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise 
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 
Rekindled all the fading melodies, 
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, 
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death. 



Oh, weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep ! 
Yet wherefore % Quench within their burning bed 
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep, 
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep ; 
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair 
Descend : — oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 
Will yet restore him to the vital air ; 
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair. 



Most musical of mourners, weep again ! 
Lament anew, Urania! — He died, 
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride 
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide, 
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite 
Of lust and blood ; he went, unterrified, 
Into the gulf of death ; but his clear Sprite 
Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of lie 



Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 
Not all to that bright station dared to climb : 
And happier they their happiness who knew, 
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 
In which suns perished ; others more sublime, 
Struck by the envious wrath of man or God, 
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime ; 
And some yet live, treading the thorny road, 
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serei: 
abode. 

VI. 

But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished, 
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew, 
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished, 
And fed with true love tears instead of dew ; 
Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 



102 ADONAIS. 

Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last, 
The bloom, whose petals nipt before they blew 
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste ; 
The broken lily lies — the storm is overpast. 



To that high Capital, where kingly Death 
Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, 
He came ; and bought, with price of purest breath, 
A grave among the eternal. — Come away ! 
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day 
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof ! while still 
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay ; 
Awake him not ! surely he takes his fill 
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. 



VIII. 

He will awake no more, oh, never more ! 
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace 
The shadow of white Death, and at the door 
Invisible Conniption waits to trace 
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place ; 
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 
So fair a prey, till darkness and the law 
Of change, shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. 



Oh, weep for Adonais ! — The quick Dreams, 

The passion-winged Ministers of thought, 

Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 

Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught 

The love which was its music, wander not, 

Wander no more, from kindhng brain to brain, 

But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn 

their lot 
Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, 
They ne'er will gather strength, nor find a home again. 



And one with trembling hand clasps his cold head, 
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries, 
" Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ; 
See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, 
Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies 
A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain." 
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise ! 
She knew not 'twas her own ; as with no stain 
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 



One from a lucid urn of starry dew 
Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them ; 
Another dipt her profuse locks, and threw, 
The wreath upon him, like an anadem, 
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem ; 
Another in her wilful grief would break 
Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem 
A greater loss with one which was more weak ; 
And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. 



Another Splendour on his mouth alit, 
That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath 
Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit, 
And pass into the panting heart beneath 
With lightning and with music : the damp death 
Quenched its caress upon its icy lips ; 
And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath 
Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips, 
It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its 
eclipse. 

xnr. 
And others came, — Desires and Adorations, 
Winged Persuasions, and veiled Destinies, 
Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations 
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies ; 
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, 



104 ADONAIS. 

And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam 
Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, 
Came in slow pomp ; — the moving pomp might seem 
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream, 

XIV. 

All he had loved, and moulded into thought 
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound, 
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 
Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, 
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, 
Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day ; 
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned, 
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, 
And the wild winds flew around, sobbing in their dismay. 



Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, 
And feeds her grief with his remembered lay, 
And will no more reply to winds or fountains, 
Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, 
Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day ; 
Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear 
Than those for whose disdain they pined away 
Into a shadow of all sounds : — a drear 
Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. 

XVI. 

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw 

down 
Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, 
Or they dead leaves ; since her delight is flown, 
For whom should she have waked the sullen year ? 
To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear, 
Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both 
Thou Adonais ; wan they stand and sere 
Amid the faint companions of their youth, 
With dew all turned to tears ; odour, to sighing ruth. 



Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale, 
Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain ; 
Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale 
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain 
Her mighty youth, with morning doth complain, 
Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, 
As Albion wails for thee : the curse of Cain 
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast, 
And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest ! 



Ah woe is me ! Winter is come and gone, 
But grief returns with the revolving year ; 
The airs and streams renew their joyous tone ; 
The ants, the bees, the swallows, re-appear ; 
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier ; 
The amorous birds now pair in every brake, 
And build then' mossy homes in field and brere ; 
And the green lizard, and the golden snake, 
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake. 

XIX. 

Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean, 
A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst, 
As it has ever done, with change and motion, 
From the great morning of the world when first 
God dawned on Chaos ; in its stream immersed, 
The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light ; 
All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst ; 
Diffuse themselves ; and spend in love's delight, 
The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. 



The leprous corpse touched by this spirit tender, 
Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath ; 
Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour 
Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death, 
And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath ; 



1©6 ADONAIS. 

Nought we know dies. Shall that alone which knows 
Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 
By sightless lightning ? th' intense atom glows 
A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. 

XXI. 

Alas ! that all we loved of him should be, 

But for our grief, as if it had not been, 

And grief itself be mortal ! Woe is me ! 

Whence are we, and why are we ? of what scene 

The actors or spectators ? Great and mean 

Meet massed in death, who lends what life must 

borrow. 
As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, 
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, 
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to 
sorrow. 

XXII. 

He will awake no more, oh, never more ! 
" Wake thou," cried Misery, " childless Mother, rise 
Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core, 
A wound more fierce than his tears and sighs." 
And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes, 
And all the echoes whom their sister's song 
Had held in holy silence, cried, " Arise !" 
Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung, 
From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. 



She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs 
Out of the East, and follows wild and drear 
The golden Day, which, on eternal wings, 
Even as a ghost abandoning a bier, 
Has left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear 
So struck, so roused, so rapt, Urania, 
So saddened round her like an atmosphere 
Of stormy mist ; so swept her on her way, 
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. 



Out of her secret Paradise she sped, 
Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel, 
And human hearts, which to her aery tread 
Yielding not, wounded the invisible 
Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell ; 
And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than 
Rent the soft Form they never could repel, [they 
Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. 



In the death-chamber for a moment Death, 
Shamed by the presence of that living Might, 
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath 
Revisited those lips, and life's pale light 
Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight. 
'* Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless, 
As silent lightning leaves the starless night ! 
Leave me not !" cried Urania : her distress 

Roused Death : Death rose and smiled, and met her 
vain caress. 

xxvr. 

" Stay yet awhile ! speak to me once again ; 
Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live ; 
And in my heartless breast and burning brain 
That word, that kiss shall all thoughts else survive, 
With food of saddest memory kept alive, 
Now thou art dead, as if it were a part 
Of thee, my Adonais ! I would give 
All that I am to be as thou now art, 

But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart ! 

XXVII. 

" O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, 
Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men 
Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart 
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den ? 
Defenceless as thou wert, oh ! where was then 



108 ADOXAIS. 

Wisdom the mirror'd shield, or scorn the spear ? 
Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when 
Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere, 
The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like 
deer. 

XXVTIf. 

" The herded wolves, bold only to pursue ; 
The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead ; 
The vultures, to the conqueror's banner true, 
Who feed where Desolation first has fed, 
And whose wings rain contagion ; — how they fled, 
When, like Apollo, from his golden bow, 
The Pythian of the age one arrow sped 
And smiled ! — The spoilers tempt no second blow, 

They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low. 



XI is. 

" The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn ; 
He sets, and each ephemeral insect then 
Is gathered into death without a dawn, 
And the immortal stars awake again ; 
So it is in the world of living men : 
A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight 
Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when 
It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light 

Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night." 

XXX. 

Thus ceased she : and the mountain shepherds came, 
Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent ; 
The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 
Over his living head like Heaven is bent, 
An early but enduring monument, 
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song 
In sorrow ; from her wilds Ieme sent 
The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, 
And love taught grief to fall like music from his 
tongue. 



'Midst others of less note, came one frail Form, 
A phantom among men, companionless 
As the last cloud of an expiring storm, 
Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess, 
Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, 
Actseon-like, and now he fled astray 
With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, 
And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, 

Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their 
prey. 

xxxn. 
A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift — 
A love in desolation masked ; — a Power 
Girt round with weakness ; — it can scarce uplift 
The weight of the superincumbent hour ; 
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 
A breaking billow ; — even whilst we speak 
Is it not broken % On the withering flower 
The killing sun smiles brightly : on a cheek 

The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may 
break. 

XXXIII. 

His head was bound with pansies over-blown, 
And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue ; 
And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, 
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew 
Yet dripping with the forest's noon-day dew, 
Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart 
Shook the weak hand that grasped it ; of that crew 
He came the last, neglected and apart ; 
A herd-abandoned deer, struck by the hunter's dart. 

XXXIV. 

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan 

Smiled through their tears ; well knew that gentle 

Who in another's fate now wept his own ; [band 

As in the accents of an unknown land 

He sang new sorrow ; sad Urania scanned 



The Stranger's mien, and murmured : " Who art 

thou ? " 
He answered not, but with a sudden hand 
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 
Which was like Cain's or Christ's. Oh ! that it should 
be so ! 

XXXV. 

What softer voice is hushed over the dead ? 
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown ? 
What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, 
In mockery of monumental stone, 
The heavy heart heaving without a moan ? 
If it be he, who, gentlest of the wise, 
Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one ; 
Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs, 
The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. 

XXXVI. 

Our Adonais has drunk poison — oh ! 
What deaf and viperous murderer could crown 
Life's early cup with such a draught of woe ? 
The nameless worm would now itself disown : 
Tt felt, yet could escape the magic tone 
Whose prelude held all envy, hate and wrong, 
But what was howling in one breast alone, 
Silent with expectation of the song, 
Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre un- 
strung. 

XXXVII. 

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 
Live ! fear no heavier chastisement from me, 
Thou noteless blot on a remembered name ! 
But be thyself, and know thyself to be ! 
And ever at thy season be thou free 
To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow : 
Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee ; 
Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, 
And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now. 






ADONAIS. Ill 

XXXVIII. 

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 
Far from these carrion-kites that scream below : 
He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ; 
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. 
Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall flow 
Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 
Through time and change, unquenchably the same, 
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of 
shame. 

XXXIX. 

Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — 
He hath awakened from the dream of life — 
'Tis we, who, lost in stormy visions, keep 
With phantoms an unprofitable strife, 
And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife 
Invulnerable nothings — We decay 
Like corpses in a charnel ; fear and grief 
Convulse us and consume us day by day, 
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living 



He has outsoared the shadow of our night ; 
Envy and calumny, and hate and pain, 
And that unrest which men miscall delight, 
Can touch him not and torture not again ; 
From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
He is secure, and now can never mourn 
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain ; 
Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, 
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 

XLI. 

He fives, he wakes — 'tis Death is dead, not he ; 
Mourn not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn, 
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee 
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone ; 
Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan ! 



Cease ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air, " 
Which like a morning veil thy scarf hadst thrown 
O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare 
Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair ! 

xLir. 
He is made one with Nature : there is heard 
His voice in all her music, from the moan 
Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird ; 
He is a presence to be felt and known 
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 
Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; 
Which wields the world with never wearied love, 
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 

XLTII. 

He is a portion of the loveliness 
Which once he made more lovely : he doth bear 
His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress 
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling 

there 
All new successions to the forms they wear, 
Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight 
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; 
And bursting in its beauty and its might 
From trees and beasts and men into the Heavens' light. 



The splendours of the firmament of time 
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not : 
Like stars to their appointed height they climb, 
And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, 
And love and life contend in it, for what 
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, 
And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. 



The inheritors of unfulfilled renown 
Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought. 
Far in the unapparent. Chatterton 
Rose pale, his solemn agony had not 
Yet faded from him ; Sidney, as he fought 
And as he fell and as he lived and loved, 
Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot, 
Arose ; and Lucan, by his death approved ; 
Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. 



And many more, whose names on Earth are dark, 

But whose transmitted effluence cannot die 

So long as fire outlives the parent spark, 

Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 

" Thou art become as one of us," they cry ; 

" It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 

Swung blind in unascended majesty, 

Silent alone amid a Heaven of song. 

Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our 
throng ! " 

xlvii. 
Who mourns for Adonais % oh come forth, 
Fond wretch ! and know thyself and him aright. 
Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth ; 
As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light 
Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 
Satiate the void circumference : then shrink 
Even to a point within our day and night ; 
And keep thy heart light, lest it make thee sink 

When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the 
brink. 

xlviii. 
Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre, 
Oh, not of him, but of our joy : 'tis nought 
That ages, empires, and religions, there 
Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought ; 
For such as he can lend, — they borrow not 



Glory from those who made the world their prey ; 
And he is gathered to the kings of thought 
Who waged contention with their times' decay, 
And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 



Go thou to Rome, — at once the Paradise, 
The grave, the city, and the wilderness : 
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, 
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress 
The bones of Desolation's nakedness 
Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead 
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, 
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead 
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. 



And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time 
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; 
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, 
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 
This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath 
A field is spread, on which a newer band 
Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death, 
Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished 
breath. 



Here pause : these graves are all too young as yet 
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 
Its charge to each ; and if the seal is set, 
Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind, 
Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find 
Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, 
Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. 
What Adonais is, why fear we to become ? 



The One remains, the many change and pass ; 
Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly ; 
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
Stains the white radiance of Eternity, 
Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, 
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! 
Follow where all is fled ! — Rome's azure sky, 
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words are weak 
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. 



Why linger', why turn back, why shrink, my Heart ! 
Thy hopes are gone before : from all things here 
They have departed ; thou shoiddst now depart ! 
A light is past from the revolving year, 
And man, and woman ; and what still is dear 
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
The soft sky smiles, — the low wind whispers near : 
'Tis Adonais calls ! oh, hasten thither, 
No more let Life divide what Death can join together. 

LIV. 

That light whose smile kindles the Universe, 
That Beauty in which all things work and move, 
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse 
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
Which through the web of being blindly wove 
By man and beast and earth and air and sea, 
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, 
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 



The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! 



11.6 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 

I am borne darkly, fearfully afar ; 
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 



) ; 



A sensitive Plant in a garden grew, 
And the young winds fed it with silver dew, 
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light, 
And closed them beneath the kisses of night. 

And the Spring arose on the garden fair, 

And the Spirit of Love fell everywhere ; 

And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast 

Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. 

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss 
In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, 
Like a doe hi the noontide with love's sweet want, 
As the companionless Sensitive Plant. 

The snowdrop, and then the violet, 

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, 

And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent 

From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. 

Then the pied windflowers and the tulip tall, 
And narcissi, the fairest among them all, 
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, 
Till they die of their own dear loveliness. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 117 

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, 
Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale, 
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen 
Through their pavilions of tender green ; 

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, 
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew 
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, 
It was felt like an odour within the sense ; 

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest, 
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, 
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air 
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare ; 

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, 

As a Msenad, its nioonlight-coloured cup, 

Till the fiery star, which is its eye, 

Gazed through the clear dew on the tender sky ; 

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, 
The sweetest flower for scent that blows ; 
And all rare blossoms from every clime 
Grew in that garden in perfect prime. 

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom 
Was prankt, under boughs of embowering blossom, 
With golden and green light, slanting through 
Their heaven of many a tangled hue, 

Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, 

And starry river-buds glimmered by, 

And around them the soft stream did glide and dance 

With a motion of sweet sound and radiance. 

And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, 
Which led through the garden along and across, 
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, 
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees, 



118 THE SENSITIVE PLANT, 

Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells, 
As fair as the fabulous asphodels, 
And flowrets which drooping as day drooped too, 
Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue, 
To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew. 

And from this undefiled Paradise 
The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes 
Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet 
Can first lull, and at last must awaken it), 

When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them, 
As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem, 
Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one 
Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun ; 

For each one was interpenetrated 
With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, 
Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear, 
Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere. 

But the Sensitive Plant, which could give small fruit 
Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root, 
Received more than all, it loved more than ever, 
Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver — 

For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower ; 
Radiance and odour are not its dower ; 
It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full, 
It desires what it has not, the beautiful ! 



The fight winds, which from unsustaining 
Shed the music of many raiuraurings ; 
The beams which dart from many a star 
Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar ; 

The plumed insects swift and free, 
Like golden boats on a sunny sea, 
Laden with light and odour, which pass 
Over the gleam of the living grass ; 



vmgs 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 119 

The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie 
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high, 
Then wander like spirits among the spheres, 
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears ; 

The quivering vapours of dim noontide, 
Which, like a sea o'er the warm earth glide, 
In which every sound, and odour, and beam, 
Move, as reeds in a single stream ; 

Each and all like ministering angels were 
For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, 
Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by 
Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky. 

And when evening descended from heaven above, 
And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love, 
And delight, though less bright, was far more deep, 
And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep. 

And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were 

drowned 
In an ocean of dreams without a sound ; 
Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress 
The light sand which paves it, consciousness ; 

(Only overhead the sweet nightingale 

Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, 

And snatches of its Elysian chant 

Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant.) 

The Sensitive Plant was the earliest 
Up-gathered into the bosom of rest ; 
A sweet child weary of its delight, 
The feeblest and yet the favourite, 
Cradled within the embrace of night. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 



There was a Power in this sweet place, 

An Eve in this Eden ; a ruling grace 

Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, 

Was as God is to the starry scheme. 

A Lady, the wonder of her kind, 
Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind, 
Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion 
Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean, 

Tended the garden from mom to even : 
And the meteors of that sublunar heaven, 
Like the lamps of the air when night walks forth, 
Laughed round her footsteps up from the Earth ! 

She had no companion of mortal race, 
But her tremulous breath and her flushing face 
Told whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, 
That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise : 

As if some bright spirit for her sweet sake 

Had deserted heaven while the stars were awake, 

As if yet around her he lingering were, 

Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. 

Her step seemed to pity the grass it prest : 
You might hear, by the heaving of her breast, 
That the coming and the going of the wind 
Brought pleasure there and left passion behind. 

And wherever her airy footstep trod, 
Her trailing hair from the grassy sod 
Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep, 
Like a sunny storm o'er the dark-green deep. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 121 

I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet 
Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet ; 
I doubt not they felt the spirit that came 
From her glowing fingers through all their frame. 

She sprinkled bright water from the stream 
On those that were faint with the sunny beam; 
And out of the cups of the heavy flowers 
She emptied the rain of the thunder showers. 

She lifted their heads with her tender hands, 
And sustained them with rods and osier bands ; 
Tf the flowers had been her own infants, she 
Could never have nursed them more tenderly. 

And all killing insects and gnawing worms, 
And things of obscene and unlovely forms, 
She bore in a basket of Indian woof, 
Into the rough woods far aloof, 

In a basket, of grasses and wild flowers full, 
The freshest her gentle hands could pull 
For the poor banished insects, whose intent, 
Although they did ill, was innocent. 

But the bee and the beamlike ephemeris, 
Whose path is the hghtning's, and soft moths that kiss 
The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she 
Make her attendant angels be. 

And many an antenatal tomb, 
Where butterflies dream of the life to come, 
She left clinging round the smooth and dark 
Edge of the odorous cedar bark. 

This fairest creature from earliest spring 
Thus moved through the garden ministering 
All the sweet season of summer tide, 
And ere the first leaf looked brown — she died ! 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT, 



PART HI. 



Three days the flowers of the garden fair, 
Like stars when the noon is awakened, were, 
Or the waves of the Baise, ere luminous 
She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius. 

And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant 
Felt the sound of the funeral chaunt, 
And the steps of the hearers, heavy and slow, 
And the sobs of the mourners, deep and low ; 

The weary sound and the heavy breath, 
And the silent motions of passing death, 
And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank, 
Sent through the pores of the coffin plank ; 

The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass, 
Were bright with tears as the ciwvd did pass ; 
From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone, 
And sate in the pines and gave groan for groan. 

The garden, once fair, became cold and foul, 
Like the corpse of her who had been its soul : 
"Which at first was lovely as if in sleep, 
Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap 
To make men tremble who never weep. 

Swift summer into the autumn flowed, 
And frost in the mist of the morning rode, 
Though the noon-day sun looked clear and bright, 
^-locking the spoil of the secret night. 

The rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, 
Paved the turf and the moss below. 
The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan, 
Like the head and the skin of a dving man. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 1-23 

And Indian plants, of scent and hue 
The sweetest that ever were fed on dew, 
Leaf after leaf, day by day, 
Were massed into the common clay. 

And the leaves, brown, yellow, and grey, and red, 
And white with the whiteness of what is dead, 
Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind past ; 
Their whistling noise made the birds aghast. 

And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds 
Out of their birth-place of ugly weeds, 
Till they clung round many a sweet flower's stem, 
Which rotted into the earth with them. 

The water-blooms under the rivulet 
Fell from the stalks on which they were set ; 
And the eddies drove them here and there, 
As the winds did those of the upper air. 

Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks 
Were bent and tangled across the walks ; 
And the leafless net- work of parasite bowers 
Massed into ruin, and all sweet flowers. 

Between the time of the wind and the snow, 

All loathliest weeds began to grow, 

Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck, 

Like the water-snake's belly and the toad's back. 

And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank, 
And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank, 
Stretch'd out its long and hollow shank, 
And stifled the air till the dead wind stank. 

And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath, 
Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth, 
Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue, 
Livid, and starred with a lurid dew. 



124 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 

And agarics and fungi, with mildew and mould, 
Started like mist from the wet ground cold ; 
Pale, fleshy, as if the decaying dead 
With a spirit of growth had been animated ! 

Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum, 

Made the running rivulet thick and dumb, 

And at its outlet, flags huge as stakes 

Dammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes. 

And hour by hour, when the air was still, 
The vapours arose which have strength to kill : 
At morn they Avere seen, at noon they were felt, 
At night they were darkness no star could melt. 

And unctuous meteors from spray to spray 
Crept and flitted in broad noon-day 
Unseen ; every branch on which they alit 
By a venomous blight was burned and bit. 

The Sensitive Plant, like one forbid, 
Wept, and the tears within each lid 
Of its folded leaves which together grew, 
Were changed to a blight of frozen glue. 

For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon 
By the heavy axe of the blast were hewn ; 
The sap shrank to the root through every pore, 
As blood to a heart that will beat no more. 

For Winter came : the wind was his whip ; 
One choppy finger was on his lip : 
He had torn the cataracts from the hflls, 
And they clanked at his girdle like manacles ; 

His breath was a chain which without a sound 
The earth, and the air, and the water bound ; 
He came, fiercely driven in his chariot-throne 
By the tenfold blasts of the arctic zone. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 125 

Then the weeds which were forms of living death, 
Fled from the frost to the earth beneath : 
Their decay and sudden flight from frost 
Was but like the vanishing of a ghost ! 

And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant 
The moles and the dormice died for w^ant : 
The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air, 
And were caught hi the branches naked and bare. 

First there came down a thawing rain, 
And its dull drops froze on the boughs again, 
Then there steamed up a freezing dew 
Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew ; 

And a northern whirlwind, wandering about 
Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, 
Shook the boughs thus laden, and heavy and stiff, 
And snapped them off with his rigid griff. 

When winter had gone and spring came back, 

The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck ; 

But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and 

darnels, 
Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels. 



CONCLUSION. 

Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that 
Which within its boughs like a spirit sat, 
Ere its outward form had known decay, 
Now felt this change, I cannot say. 

Whether that lady's gentle mind, 
No longer with the form combined 
Which scattered love, as stars do light, 
Found sadness, where it left delight, 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 

I dare not guess ; but in this life 
Of error, ignorance and strife, 
Where nothing is, but all things seem, 
And we the shadows of the dream, 

It is a modest creed, and yet 
Pleasant, if one considers it, 
To own that death itself must be, 
Like all the rest, a mockery. 

That garden sweet, that lady fair, 
And all sweet shapes and odours there, 
In truth have never passed away : 
'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed ! not they. 

For love, and beauty, and delight, 
There is no death nor change ; their might 
Exceeds our organs, which endure 
No light, being themselves obscure. 



THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 



Swift as a spirit hastening to bis task 

Of glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth 

Rejoicing in his splendour, and the mask 

Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth — 
The smokeless altars of the mountain snows 
Flamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth 

Of light, the Ocean's orison arose, 

To which the birds tempered their matin lay. 

All flowers in field or forest which unclose 

Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day, 
Swinging then.' censers in the element, 
With orient incense lit by the new ray 

Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent 
Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air ; 
And, in succession due, did continent, 

Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wear 
The form and character of mortal mould, 
Rise as the sun their father rose, to bear 

Their portion of the toil, which he of old 
Took as Ins own and then imposed on them : 
But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold 

Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem 
The cone of night, now they were laid asleep 
Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem 



128 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. • 

Which, an old chesnut flung athwart the steep 

Of a green Apennine : before me fled 

The night ; behind me rose the day ; the deep 

Was at my feet, and Heaven above my head, 
When a strange trance over my fancy grew 
Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread 

Was so transparent that the scene came through 
As clear as, when a veil of light is drawn 
O'er evening hills, they glimmer ; and I knew 

That I had felt the freshness of that dawn 
Bathe in the same cold dew my brow and hair, 
And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn 

Under the self-same bough, and heard as there 
The birds, the fountains, and the ocean hold 
Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air, 
And then a vision on my brain was rolled. 

As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay, 
This was the tenour of my waking dream : — 
Methought I sate beside a public way 

Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream 
Of people there was hurrying to and fro, 
Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam, 

All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know 
Whither he went, or whence he came, or why 
He made one of the multitude, and so 

Was borne amid the crowd, as through the sky 
One of the million leaves of summer's bier ; 
Old age and youth, manhood and infancy, 

Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear : 

Some flying from the thing they feared, and some 

Seeking the object of another's fear ; 



TIIE TRICMPH OF LIFE. 

Aud others as with steps towards the tomb, 
Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath, 
And othei-s mournfully within the gloom 

Of their own shadow walked and called it death : 
And some fled from it as it were a ghost, 
Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath : 

But more, with motions which each other crost, 
Pursued or spurned the shadows the clouds threw, 
Or birds within the noon-day ether lost, 

Upon that path where flowers never grew, — 
And weary with vain toil and faint for thirst, 
Heard not the fountains, whose melodious dew 

Out of their mossy cells for ever burst ; 

Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told 

Of grassy paths and wood, lawn-interspersed, 

With over-arching elms and caverns cold, 

And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they 

Pursued their serious folly as of old. — 

And as I gazed, methought that in the way 
The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June 
When the south wind snakes the extinguished day, 

And a cold glare intenser than the noon, 
But icy cold, obscured with blinding light 
The sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon 

When on the sunlit limits of the night 
Her white shell trembles amid crimson air, 
And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might, 

Doth, as the herald of its coming, bear 

The ghost of its dead mother, whose dim form 

Bends in dark ether from her infant's chair, — 



130 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 

So came a chariot on the silent storm 

Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape 

So sate within, as one whom years deform, 

Beneath a dusky hood and double cape, 

Crouching within the shadow of a tomb ; 

And o'er what seemed the head a cloud-like crape 

Was bent, a dun and faint ethereal gloom 
Tempering the light : upon the chariot beam 
A Jamis-visaged shadow did assume 

The guidance of that wonder-winged team ; 
The shapes which drew it in thick lightnings 
Were lost : — I heard alone on the air's soft stream 

The music of their ever-moving wings. 

All the four faces of that charioteer 

Had their eyes banded ; little profit brings 

Speed in the van and blindness in the rear, 
Nor then avail the beams that cmench the sun 
Or that with banded eyes could pierce the sphere 

Of all that is, has been, or will be done ; 
So ill was the car guided — but it past 
With solemn speed majestically on. 

The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast, 
Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance, 
And saw, like clouds upon the thunder's blast, 

The million with fierce song and maniac dance 
Raging around — such seemed the jubilee 
As when, to meet some conqueror's advance, 

Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea 
From senate-house, and forum, and theatre, 
When [ ] upon the free 



THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 131 

Had bound a yoke, which soon they stooped to bear. 
Nor wanted here the just similitude 
Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er 

The chariot rolled, a captive multitude 

Was driven ; — all those who had grown old in power 

Or misery, — all who had then' age subdued 

By action or by suffering, and whose hour 

Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe, 

So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower ; — 

All those whose fame or infamy must grow 
Till the great winter lay the form and name 
Of this green earth with them for ever low ; — 

All but the sacred few who could not tame 
Their spirits to the conquerors — but as soon 
As they had touched the world with living flame. 

Fled back like eagles to their native noon, — 

Or those who put aside the diadem 

Of earthly thrones or gems [ ] 

Were there of Athens or Jerusalem, 

Were neither 'mid the mighty captives seen, 

Nor 'mid the ribald crowd that followed them, 

Nor those who went before fierce and obscene. 
The wild dance maddens in the van, and those 
Who lead it — fleet as shadows on the green, 

Outspeed the chariot, and without repose 
Mix with each other in tempestuous measure 
To savage music, wilder as it grows, 

They, tortured by their agonizing pleasure, 
Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun 
Of that fierce spirit whose unholy leisure 



132 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 

Was soothed by mischief since the world begun, — 
Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair ; 
And in their dance round her who dims the sun, 

Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air ; 
As their feet twinkle they recede, and now 
Bending within each other's atmosphere 

Kindle invisibly — and as they glow, 

Like moths by light attracted and repelled, 

Oft to their bright destruction come and go, 

Till like two clouds into one vale impelled 

That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle 

And die in rain — the fiery band which held 

Their natures, snaps — the shock still may tingle ; 
One falls and then another in the path 
Senseless — nor is the desolation single, 

Yet ere I can say where — the chariot hath 
Past over them — nor other trace I find 
But as of foam after the ocean's wrath 

Is spent upon the desert shore ; — behind, 
Old men and women foully disarrayed, 
Shake their grey hairs in the insulting wind, 

And follow in the dance, with limbs decayed, 
Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still 
i Farther behind and deeper in the shade. 

But not the less with impotence of will 

They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose 

Round them and round each other, and fulfil 

Their part, and in the dust from whence they rose 
Sink, and corruption veils them as they lie, 
And past in these performs what [ ] in those. 



THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 133 

Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry, 
Half to myself I said — And what is this ? 
Whose shape is that within the car ? And why — 

I would have added — is all here amiss 1 — 

But a voice answered — "Life !" — I turned, and knew 

(O Heaven, have mercy on such wretchedness !) 

That what I thought was an old root which grew 
To strange distortion out of the hill side, 
Was indeed one of those deluded crew, 

And that the grass, which methought hung so wide 
And white, was but his thin discoloured hair, 
And that the holes it vainly sought to hide, 

Were or had been eyes : — " If thou canst, forbear 
To join the dance, which I had well forborne 1" 
Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware, 

" I will unfold that which to this deep scorn 
Led me and my companions, and relate 
The pi'ogress of the pageant since the morn ; 

" If thirst of knowledge shall not then abate, 

Follow it thou even to the night, but I 

Am weary." — Then like one who with the weight 

Of his own words is staggered, wearily 

He paused ; and, ere he could resume, I cried, 

" First, who art thou 1 " — " Before thy memory, 

" I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did and died, 
And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit 
Had been with purer sentiment supplied, 

" Corruption would not now thus much inherit 
Of what was once Rousseau, — nor this disguise 
Stained that which ought to have disdained to wear it ; 



134 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 

" If I have been extinguished, yet there rise 

A thousand beacons from the spark I bore" — 

" And who are those chained to the car ? " — " The wise, 

" The great, the unforgotten, — they who wore 
Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light, 
Signs of thought's empire over thought — their lore 

" Taught them not this, to know themselves ; their might 

Could not repress the mystery within, 

And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night 

" Caught them ere evening." — "Who is he with chin 
Upon his breast, and hands crossed on his chain?" — 
" The Child of a fierce hour ; he sought to win 

" The world, and lost all that it did contain 
Of greatness, in its hope destroyed ; and more 
Of fame and peace than virtue's self can gain 

" Without the opportunity which bore 

Him on its eagle pinions to the peak 

From which a thousand climbers have before 

" Fallen, as Napoleon fell." — I felt my cheek 

Alter to see the shadow pass away, 

Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak, -v. 

That every pigmy kicked it as it lay ; 

And much I grieved to think how power and will 

In opposition rule our mortal day, 

And why God made irreconcilable 

Good and the means of good ; and for despair 

I half disdained mine eyes' desire to fill 

With the spent vision of the times that were 

And scarce have ceased to be. — " Dost thou behold," 

Said my guide, u those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire, 



THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 135 

" Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold, 
And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage — 
names which the world thinks always old, 

" For in the battle life and they did wage, 
She remained conqueror. I was overcome 
By my own heart alone, which neither age, 

" Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb 
Could temper to its object." — " Let them pass," 
I cried, "the world and its mysterious doom 

" Is not so much more glorious than it was, 
That I desire to worship those who drew 
New figures on its false and fragile glass 

" As the old faded." — " Figures ever new 
Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may ; 
We have but thrown, as those before us threw, 

" Our shadows on it as it passed away. 

But mark how chained to the triumphal chair 

The mighty phantoms of an elder day ; 

" All that is mortal of great Plato there 
Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not :' 
The star that ruled his doom was far too fair, 

" And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not, 
Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain, 
Or age, or sloth, or slavery, could subdue not. 

" And near him walk the [ ] twain, 

The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion 
Followed as tame as vulture in a chain. 

" The world was darkened beneath either pinion 
Of him whom from the flock of conquerors 
Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion ; 



136 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 

" The other long outlived both woes and wars, 
Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept 
The jealous key of truth's eternal doors, 

(t If Bacon's eagle spirit had not leapt 

Like lightning out of darkness — he compelled 

The Proteus shape of Nature as it slept 

" To wake, and lead him to the caves that held 

The treasure of the secrets of its reign. 

See the great bards of elder time, who quelled 

li The passions which they sung, as by their strain 
May well be known : their living melody 
Tempers its own contagion to the vein 

" Of those who are infected with it — I 
Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain, 
And so my words have seeds of misery ! " 



[There is a chasm here in the MS. which it is impossible to fill 
up. It appears from the context, that other shapes pass, and 
that Rousseau still stood beside the dreamer, as] 

he pointed to a company, 

'Midst whom I quickly recognised the heirs 
Of Caesar's crime, from him to Constantine ; 
The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares 



Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line, 

And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad : 

And Gregory and John, and men divine, 

Who rose like shadows between man and God ; 

Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven, 

Was worshipped by the world o'er which they strode, 



THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 137 

For the true sun it quenched — " Their power was given 
But to destroy," replied the leader : — " I 
Am one of those who have created, even 

If it he but a world of agony." — 

" Whence cornest thou \ and whither goest thou ? 

How did thy course begin ? " I said, " and why ? 

" Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow 

Of people, and my heart sick of one sad thought — 

Speak ! " — " Whence I am, I partly seem to know, 

" And how and by what paths I have been brought 
To this dread pass, methinks even thou may'st guess ; — 
Why this should be, my mind can compass not ; 

" Whither the conqueror hurries me, still less ; — 
But follow thou, and from spectator turn 
Actor or victim in this wretchedness, 

" And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn 
From thee. Now listen : — In the April prime, 
When all the forest tips began to burn 

" With kindling green, touched by the azure clime 
Of the young year's dawn, I was laid asleep 
Under a mountain, which from unknown time 

" Had yawned into a cavern, high and deep ; 

And from it came a gentle rivulet, 

Whose water, like clear ah", in its calm sweep 

" Bent the soft grass, and kept for ever wet 

The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove 

With sounds, which whoso hears must needs forget 

" All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love, 
Which they had known before that hour of rest ; 
A sleeping mother then would dream not of 



133 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 

" Her only child who died upon her breast 
At eventide — a king would mourn no more 
The crown of which his brows were dispossest 

*' When the sun lingered o'er his ocean floor, 

To gild his rival's new prosperity. 

Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore 

" Ills, which if ills can find no cure from thee, 
The thought of which no other sleep will quell, 
Nor other music blot from memory, 

" So sweet and deep is the oblivious spell ; 
And whether life had been before that sleep 
The heaven which I imagine, or a hell 

" Like this harsh world in which I wake to weep, 

I know not. I arose, and for a space 

The scene of woods and waters seemed to keep, 

" Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace 
Of light diviner than the common sun 
Sheds on the common earth, and all the place 

" Was filled with magic sounds woven into one 

Oblivious melody, confusing sense 

Amid the gliding waves and shadows dun ; 

" And, as I looked, the bright omnipresence 
Of morning through the orient cavern flowed, 
And the sun's image radiantly intense 

il Burned on the waters of the well that glowed 
Like gold, and threaded all the forest's maze 
With winding paths of emerald fire ; there stood 

" Amid the sun, — as he amid the blaze 

Of his own glory, on the vibrating 

Floor of the fountain paved with flashing rays, — 



THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 139 

" A Shape all light, which with one hand did fling 
Dew on the earth, as if she were the dawn, 
And the invisible rain did ever sing 

" A silver music on the mossy lawn ; 
And still before me on the dusky grass, 
Iris her many-coloured scarf had drawn : 

" In her right hand she bore a crystal glass, 
Mantling with bright Nepenthe ; the fierce splendour 
Fell from her as she moved under the mass 

" Out of the deep cavern, with palms so tender, 
Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow ; 
She glided along the river, and did bend her 

" Head under the dark boughs, till, like a willow, 
Her fair hah' swept the bosom of the stream 
That whispered with delight to be its pillow. 

I As one enamoured is upborne in dream 

O'er lily-paven lakes 'mid silver mist, 

To wondrous music, so this shape might seem 

" Partly to tread the waves with feet which kissed 
The dancing foam ; partly to glide along 
The air which roughened the moist amethyst, 

" Or the faint morning beams that fell among 
The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees ; 
And her feet, ever to the ceaseless song 

" Of leaves, and winds, and waves, and birds, and bees 
And falling drops moved to a measure new, 
Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze, 

" Up from the lake a shape of golden dew 
Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon, 
Dances i' the wind, where never eagle flew ; 



140 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 

" Aud still her feet, no less than the sweet tune 

To which they moved, seemed as they moved to blot 

The thoughts of him who gazed on them ; and soon 

" All that was, seemed as if it had been not ; 
And all the gazer's mind was strewn beneath 
Her feet like embers ; and she, thought by thought, 

" Trampled its sparks into the dust of death, 

As day upon the threshold of the east 

Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath 

" Of darkness re-illumine even the least 
Of heaven's living eyes ! like day she came, 
Making the night a dream ; and ere she ceased 

" To move, as one between desire and shame 
Suspended, I said — If, as it doth seem, 
Thou comest from the realm without a name, 

" Into this valley of perpetual dream, 

Show whence I came, and where I am, and why — 

Pass not away upon the passing stream. 

" Arise and quench thy thirst, was her reply. 
And as a shut lily, stricken by the wand 
Of dewy morning's vital alchemy, 

" I rose ; and, bending at her sweet command, 
Touched with faint lips the cup she raised, 
And suddenly my brain became as sand, 

" Where the first wave had more than half erased 
The track of deer on desert Labrador ; 
Whilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed, 

" Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore, 
Until the second bursts ; — so on my sight 
Burst a new vision, never seen before, 



THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 141 

" And the fair shape waned in the coming light, 
As veil by veil the silent splendour drops 
From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite 

" Of sun-rise, ere it tinge the mountain tops ; 
And as the presence of that fairest planet, 
Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes 

" That Ins day's path may end, as he began it, 
In that star's smile, whose light is like the scent 
Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it, 

" Or the soft note in which his dear lament 
The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress 
That turned his weary slumber to content* ; 

" So knew I in that light's severe excess 

The presence of that shape which on the stream 

Moved, as I moved along the wilderness, 

" More dimly than a day-appearing dream, 

The ghost of a forgotten form of sleep ; 

A light of heaven, whose half-extinguished beam 

" Through the sick day in which we wake to weep, 
Glimmers, for ever sought, for ever lost ; 
So did that shape its obscure tenour keep 

" Beside my path, as silent as a ghost ; 

But the new Vision, and the cold bright car, 

With solemn speed and stunning music, crost 

" The forest, and as if from some dread war 
Triumphantly returning, the loud million 
Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star. 

" A moving arch of victory, the vermilion 
And green and azure plumes of Iris had 
Built high over her wind-winged pavilion, 

* The favourite song, " Stanco di pascolar le peeorelle," is a 
Brescian national air. 



142 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 

" And underneath ethereal glory clad 
The wilderness, and far before her flew 
The tempest of the splendour, which forbade 

" Shadow to fall from leaf and stone ; the crew 
Seemed in that light, like atomies to dance 
Within a sunbeam ; — some upon the new 

" Embroidery of flowers, that did enhance 
The grassy vesture of the desert, played, 
Forgetful of the chariot's swift advance ; 

" Others stood gazing, till within the shade 
Of the great mountain its light left them dim ; 
Others outspeeded it ; and others made 

" Circles around it, like the clouds that swim 
Round the high moon in a bright sea of air ; 
And more did follow, with exulting hymn, 

" The chariot and the captives fettered there : — 
But all like bubbles on an eddying flood 
Fell into the same track at last, and were 

" Borne onward. I among the multitude 

Was swept — me, sweetest flowers delayed not long ; 

Me, not the shadow nor the solitude ; 

" Me, not that falling stream's Lethean song ; 
Me, not the phantom of that early form, 
Which moved upon its motion — but among 

" The thickest billows of that living storm 
I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime 
Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform. 

" Before the chariot had begun to climb 
The opposing steep of that mysterious dell, 
Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme 



THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. V 

" Of him who from the lowest depths of hell, 
Through every paradise and through all glory, 
Love led serene, and who returned to tell 

" The words of hate and care ; the wondrous story 
How all things are transfigured except Love ; 
(For deaf as is a sea, which wrath makes hoary, 

" The world can hear not the sweet notes that move 
The sphere whose light is melody to lovers) 
A wonder worthy of his rhyme — the grove 

" Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers, 
The earth was grey with phantoms, and the air 
Was peopled with- dim forms, as when there hovers 

" A flock of vampire-bats before the glare 

Of the tropic sun, bringing, ere evening, 

Strange night upon some Indian vale ; — thus were 

U Phantoms diffused around ; and some did fling 
Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves, 
Behind them ; some like eaglets on the wing 

" Were lost in the white day ; others like elves 
Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes 
Upon the sunny streams and grassy shelves ; 

" And others sate chattering like restless apes 

On vulgar hands, [ ] 

Some made a cradle of the ermined capes 

u Of kingly mantles ; some across the tire 
Of pontiffs rode, like demons ; others played 
Under the crown which girt with empire 

" A baby's or an idiot's brow, and made 

Their nests in it. The old anatomies 

Sate hatching their bare broods under the shade 



144 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. 

" Of demon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes 

To re-assume the delegated power, 

Arrayed in which those worms did monarchise, 

" Who made this earth their charnel. Others more 

Humble, like falcons, sat upon the fist 

Of common men, and round their heads did soar ; 

" Or like small gnats and flies, as thick as mist 
On evening marshes, thronged about the brow 
Of lawyers, statesmen, priest, and theorist ; — 

" And others, like discoloured flakes of snow 
On fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair, 
Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow 

" Which they extinguished ; and, like tears, they were 
A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained 
In drops of sorrow. I became aware 

" Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stain'd 
The track in which we moved. After brief space, 
From every form the beauty slowly waned ; 

" From every firmest limb and fairest face 

The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left 

The action and the shape without the grace 

" Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft 
With care ; and in those eyes where once hope shone, 
Desire, like a lioness bereft 

" Of her last cub, glared ere it died ; each one 

Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly 

These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown 

" In autumn evening from a poplar tree, 
Each like himself and like each other were 
At first ; but some distorted seemed to be 



THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. US 

u Obscure clouds, moulded by the casual air ; 
And of this stuff the car's creative ray 
Wrapt all the busy phantoms that were there, 

" As the sun shapes the clouds ; thus on the way 
Mask after mask fell from the countenance 
And form of all ; and long before the day 

a Was old, the joy which waked like heaven's glance 
The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died ; 
And some grew weary of the ghastly dance, 

u And fell, as I have fallen, by the way -side ; — 
Those soonest from whose forms most shadows past, 
And least of strength and beauty did abide. 

" Then, what is life % I cried." — 



EARLY POEMS. 



TANTHE. 



CANTO I. 

How wonderful is Death, 

Death and his brother Sleep ! 
One, pale as yonder waning moon, 

With lips of lurid blue ; 

The other, rosy as the morn 
When throned on ocean's wave, 

It blushes o'er the world : 
Yet both so passing wonderful ! 

Hath then the gloomy Power 
Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres 
Seized on her sinless soul ? 
Must then that peerless form 
Which love and admiration cannot view 
Without a beating heart, those azure veins 
Which steal like streams along a field of snow, 
That lovely outline, which is fair 
As breathing marble, perish ? 
Must putrefaction's breath 
Leave nething of this heavenly sight 

But loathsomeness and ruin ? 

Spare nothing but a gloomy theme, 

On which the lightest heart might moralize ? 



IANTHE. 

Or is it only a sweet slumber 

Stealing o'er sensation, 
Which the breath of roseate morning 

Chaseth into darkness % 

Will Ianthe wake again, 
And give that faithful bosom joy 
Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch 
Light, life, and rapture, from her smile % 

Yes ! she will wake again, 
Although her glowing limbs are motionless, 
And silent those sweet lips, 
Once breathing eloquence 
That might have soothed a tiger's rage, 
Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror. 
Her dewy eyes are closed, 
And on their lids, whose texture fine 
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath, 
The baby Sleep is pillowed : 
Her golden tresses shade 
The bosom's stainless pride, 
Curling like tendrils of the parasite 
Around a marble column. 

Hark ! whence that rushing sound ? 

'Tis like the wondrous strain 
That round a lonely ruin swells, 
Which, wandering on the echoing shove, 

The enthusiast hears at evening : 
'Tis softer than the west wind's sigh ; 
'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes 
Of that strange lyre whose strings 

The genii of the breezes sweep : 

Those lines of rainbow light 
Are like the moonbeams when they fall 
Through some cathedral window, but the teints 

Are such as may not find 

Comparison on earth. 

h 2 



EARLY POEMS. 

Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen ! 

Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air ; 

Their filmy pennons at her word they furl, 

And stop obedient to the reins of light : 
These the Queen of Spells drew in, 
She spread a charm around the spot, 

And leaning graceful from the ethereal car, 
Long did she gaze, and silently, 
Upon the slumbering maid. 



Oh ! not the visioned poet in his dreams, 
When silvery clouds float through the wildered brain, 
When every sight of lovely, wild and grand, 
Astonishes, enraptures, elevates — 
When fancy at a glance combines 
The wond'rous and the beautiful, — 
So bright, so fair, so wild a shape 
Hath ever yet beheld, 
As that which reined the coursers of the air, 
And poured the magic of her gaze 
Upon the sleeping maid. 



The broad and yellow moon 
Shone dimly through her form — 

That form of faultless symmetry ; 

The pearly and pellucid car 

Moved not the moonlight's line : 
'Twas not an earthly pageant ; 

Those who had look'd upon the sight, 
Passing all human glory, 
Saw not the yellow moon, 
Saw not the mortal scene, 
Heard not the night- wind's rush, 
Heard not an earthly sound, 
Saw but the fairy pageant, 
Heard but the heavenly strains 
That filled the lonely dwelling. 



IANTHE. 149 

The Fairy's frame was slight ; yon fibrous cloud, 
That catches but the palest tinge of even, 
And which the straining eye can hardly seize 
When melting into eastern twilight's shadow, 
Were scarce so thin, so slight ; but the fair star 
That gems the glittering coronet of morn, 
Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful, 
As that which, bursting from the Fairy's form, 
Spread a purpureal halo round the scene, 
Yet with an undulating motion, 
Swayed to her outline gracefully. 

From her celestial car 

The Fairy Queen descended, 

And thrice she waved her wand 
Circled with wreaths of amaranth : 

Her thin and misty form 

Moved with the moving air, 

And the clear silver tones, 

As thus she spoke, were such 
As are unheard by all but gifted ear. 

FAIRY. 

Stars ! your balmiest influence shed ! 
Elements ! your wrath suspend ! 
Sleep, Ocean, in the rocky bounds 

That circle thy domain ! 
Let not a breath be seen to stir 
Around yon grass-grown ruin's height, 
Let even the restless gossamer 
Sleep on the moveless air ! 
Soul of Ianthe ! thou, 
Judged alone worthy of the envied boon 
That waits the good and the sincere ; that waits 
Those who have struggled, and with resolute will 
Vanquished earth's pride and meanness, burst the chains, 
The icy chains of custom, and have shone 
The day-stars of their age ; — Soul of Ianthe ! 
Awake ! arise ! 



150 EARLY POEMS. 

Sudden arose 
Ianthe's Soul ; it stood 
All beautiful in naked purity, 
The perfect semblance of its bodily frame. 
Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace, 
Each stain of earthliness 
Had passed away, it reassumed 
Its native dignity, and stood 
Immortal amid rum. 

Upon the couch the body lay, 
Wrapt in the depth of slumber : 
Its features were fixed and meaningless, 
Yet animal life was there, 
And every organ yet performed 
Its natural functions ; 'twas a sight 
Of wonder to behold the body and soul. 
The self-same lineaments, the same 
Marks of identity were there ; 
Yet, oh how different ! One aspires to heaven, 
Pants for its sempiternal heritage, 
And ever- changing, ever-rising still, 

Wantons in endless being. 
The other, for a time the unwilling sport 
Of circumstance and passion, struggles on ; 
Fleets through its sad duration rapidly ; 
Then like a useless and worn-out machine, 
Rots, perishes and passes. 

FAIRY. 

Spirit ! who hast dived so deep ; 
Spirit ! who hast soar'd so high ; 
Thou the fearless, thou the mild, 
Accept the boon thy worth hath earned, 
Ascend the car with me. 

SPIRIT. 

Do I dream ? Is this new feeling 
But a visioned ghost of slumber ? 
If indeed I am a soul, 



A free, a disembodied soul, 
Speak again to me, 

FAIRY. 

1 am the Fairy Mab : to me 'tis given 
The wonders of the human world to keep. 
The secrets of the immeasurable past, 
In the unfailing consciences of men, 
Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find : 
The future, from the causes which arise 
In each event, I gather : not the sting 
Which retributive memory implants 
In the hard bosom of the selfish man ; 
Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb _ 
Which virtue's votary feels when he sums up 
The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day, 
Are unforeseen, unregistered by me : 
And it is yet permitted me, to rend 
The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit, 
Clothed in its changeless purity, may know 
How soonest to accomplish the great end 
For which it hath its being, and may taste 
That peace, which in the end, all life will share. 
This is the meed of virtue ; happy Soul, 
Ascend the car with me I 

The chains of earth's immurement 
Fell from Ianthe's spirit ; 
They shrank and brake like bandages of straw 
Beneath a wakened giant's strength. 
She knew her glorious change, 
And felt in apprehension uncontrolled 

New raptures opening round : 
Each day-dream of her mortal life, 
Each frenzied vision of the slumbers 
That closed each well-spent day, 
Seemed now to meet reality. 

The Fairy and the Soul proceeded ; 
The silver clouds disparted ; 



152 EARLY POEMS. 

And as the car of magic they ascended., 
Again the speechless music swelled, 
Again the coursers of the air 
Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen, 
Shaking the beamy reins, 
Bade them pursue their way. 

The magic car moved on. 
The night was fair, and countless stars 
Studded heaven's dark blue vault, — 

Just o'er the eastern wave 
Peeped the first faint smile of morn ; — 
The magic car moved on — 
From the celestial hoofs 
The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew, 

And where the burning wheels 

Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak, 

Was traced a line of lightning. 

Now it flew far above a rock, 

The utmost verge of earth, 

The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow 

Lowered o'er the silver sea. 

Far, far below the chariot's path, 
Calm as a slumbering babe, 
Tremendous Ocean lay. 

The mirror of its stillness showed 
The pale and waning stars, 
The chariot's fiery track, 
And the grey light of morn 
Tinging those fleecy clouds 
That canopied the dawn. 

Seemed it, that the chariot's way 

Lay through the midst of an immense concave, 

Radiant with million constellations, tinged 

With shades of infinite colour, 

And semicircled with a belt 

Flashing incessant meteors. 



The magic car moved on. 
As they approached their goal, 
The coursers seemed to gather speed ; 
The sea no longer was distinguished ; earth 
Appear'd a vast and shadowy sphere ; 
The sun's unclouded orb 
Rolled through the black concave ; 
Its rays of rapid light 
Parted around the chariot's swifter course, 
And fell, like ocean's feathery spray 
Dashed from the boiling surge 
Before a vessel's prow. 

The magic car moved on. 
Earth's distant orb appeared 
The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven ; 
Whilst round the chariot's way 
Innumerable systems rolled, 
And countless spheres diffused 
An ever-varying glory. 
It was a sight of wonder : some 
Were horned like the crescent moon ; 
Some shed a mild and silver beam 
Like Hesperus o'er the western sea ; 
Some dashed athwart with trains of flame. 
Like worlds to death and ruin driven ; 
Some shone like suns, and as the chariot passed, 
Eclipsed all other light. 

Spirit of Nature ! here ! 
In this interminable wilderness 
Of worlds, at whose immensity 
Even soaring fancy staggers, 
Here is thy fitting temple. 
Yet not the lightest leaf 
That quivers to the passing breeze 
Is less instinct with thee : 
Yet not the meanest worm 
That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead 
h 3 



154 EARLY POEMS. 

Less shares thy eternal breath. 

Spirit of Nature ! thou ! 
Imperishable as this scene, 

Here is thy fitting temple ! 

CANTO II. 
If solitude hath ever led thy steps 
To the wild ocean's echoing shore, 
And thou hast lingered there, 
Until the sun's broad orb 
Seemed resting on the burnished wave, 

Thou must have marked the lines 
Of purple gold, that motionless 

Hung o'er the sinking sphere : 
Thou must have marked the billowy clouds 
Edged with intolerable radiancy, 
Towering like rocks of jet 
Crowned with a diamond wreath. 
And yet there is a moment, 
When the sun's highest point 
Peeps like a star o'er ocean's western edge, 
When those far clouds of feathery gold, 
Shaded with deepest purple, gleam 
Like islands on a dark blue sea ; 
Then has thy fancy soared above the earth, 
And furled its wearied wing 
Within the Fairy's fane. 

Yet not the golden islands 
Gleaming in yon flood of light, 

Nor the feathery curtains 
Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch, 
Nor the burnished ocean-waves, 
Paving that gorgeous dome, 
So fair, so wonderful a sight 
As Mab's ethereal palace could afford. 
Yet likest evening's vault, that fairy Hall ! 
As Heaven, low resting on the wave, it spread 
Its floors of flashing light, 



IANTHE. 

Its vast and azure dome, 
Its fertile golden islands 
Floating on a silver sea ; 
Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted 
Through clouds of circumambient darkness, 
And pearly battlements around 
Looked o'er the immense of Heaven. 

The magic car no longer moved. 
The Fairy arid the Spirit 
Entered the Hall of Spells : 
Those golden clouds 
That rolled in glittering billows 
Beneath the azure canopy, 
With the ethereal footsteps trembled not : 

The light and crimson mists, 
Floating to strains of thrilling melody 
Through that unearthly dwelling, 
Yielded to every movement of the will. 
Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned, 
And, for the varied bliss that pressed around, 
Used not the glorious privilege 
Of virtue and of wisdom. 

Spirit ! the Fairy said, 
And pointed to the gorgeous dome, 

This is a wondrous sight 
And mocks all human grandeur ; 
But, were it virtue's only meed, to dwell 
In a celestial palace, all resigned 
To pleasurable impulses, immured 
Within the prison of itself, the will 
Of changeless nature would be unfulfilled. 
Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come ! 
This is thine high reward : — the past shall rise 
Thou shalt behold the present ; I will teach 

The secrets of the future. 

The Fairy and the Spirit 
Approached the overhanging battlement. — 



156 EARLY POEMS. 

Below lay stretched the universe ! 
There, far as the remotest line 
That bounds imagination's flight, 

Countless and unending orbs 
In mazy motion intermingled, 
Yet still fulfilled immutably 
Eternal Nature's law. 
Above, below, around 
The circling systems formed 
A wilderness of harmony ; 
Each with undeviating aim, 
In eloquent silence, through the depths of space 
Pursued its wondrous way. 

There was a little light 
That twinkled in the misty distance : 

None but a spirit's eye 

Might ken that rolling orb ; 

None but a spirit's eye, 

And in no other place 
But that celestial dwelling, might behold 
Each action of this earth's inhabitants. 

But matter, space and time, 
In those aerial mansions cease to act ; 
And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps 
The harvest of its excellence, o'erbounds 
Those obstacles, of which an earthly soul 
Fears to attempt the conquest. 

The Fairy pointed to the earth. 
The Spirit's intellectual eye 
Its kindred beings recognized. 
The thronging thousands, to a passing view, 
Seemed like an ant-hill's citizens. 
How wonderful ! that even 
The passions, prejudices, interests, 
That sway the meanest being, the weak touch 
That moves the finest nerve, 
And in one human brain 



Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link 
In the great chain of nature. 

Behold, the Fairy cried, 
Palmyra's ruin'd palaces ! — 

Behold ! where grandeur frowned ; 

Behold ! where pleasure smiled ; 
"What now remains I — the memory 

Of senselessness and shame — 

What is immortal there ? 

Nothing — it stands to tell 

A melancholy tale, to give 

An awful warning : soon 
Oblivion will steal silently 

The remnant of its fame. 

Monarchs and conquerors there 
Proud o'er prostrate millions trod — 
The earthquakes of the human race,— 
Like them, forgotten when the ruin 

That marks their shock is past, 

Beside the eternal Nile 

The Pyramids have risen, ^ 
Nile shall pursue his changeless way ; 

Those Pyramids shall fall ; 
Yea ! not a stone shall stand to tell 

The spot whereon they stood ; 
Their very site shall be forgotten, 

As is their builder's name ! 

Behold yon sterile spot ; 
Where now the wandering Arab's tent 

Flaps in the desert-blast. 
There once old Salem's haughty fane 
Beared high to heaven its thousand golden domes, 
And in the blushing face of day 
Exposed its shameful glory. 
Oh ! many a widow, many an orphan cursed 
The building of that fane ; and many a father, 
Worn out with toil and slavery, implored 



158 EARLY POEMS. 

The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth, 
And spare his children the detested task 
Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning 

The choicest days of life, 

To soothe a dotard's vanity. 
There an inhuman and uncultured race 
Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God ; 
They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb 
The unborn-child, — old age and infancy 
Promiscuous perished ; their victorious arms 
Left not a soul to breathe. Oh ! they were fiends : 
But what was he who taught them that the God 
Of nature and benevolence had given 
A special sanction to the trade of blood ? 
His name and theirs are fading, and the tales 
Of this barbarian nation, which imposture 
Recites till terror credits, are pursuing 
Itself into forge tfulness. 

Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood, 
There is a moral desert now : 
The mean and miserable huts, 
The yet more wretched palaces, 
Contrasted with those ancient fanes, 
Now crumbling to oblivion ; 
The long and lonely colonnades, 
Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks, 

Seem like a well-known tune, 
Which, in some dear scene we have loved to hear, 

Remembered now in sadness. 

But, oh ! how much more changed, 

How gloomier is the contrast 

Of human nature there ! 
Where Socrates expired, a tyrant's slave, 
A coward and a fool, spreads death around — 

Then, shuddering, meets his own. 
Where Cicero and Antoninus lived, 
A cowled and hypocritical monk 

Prays, curses, and deceives. 



Spirit ! ten thousand years 
Have scarcely passed away, 
Since, in the waste where now the savage drinks 
His enemy's blood, and aping Europe's sons, 
Wakes the unholy song of war, 
Arose a stately city, 
Metropolis of the western continent : 

There, now, the mossy column-stone, 
Indented by time's unrelaxing grasp, 
Which once appeared to brave 
All, save its country's ruin ; 
There the wide forest scene, 
Rude in the uncultivated loveliness 

Of gardens long run wild, 
Seems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose steps ' 

Chance in that desert has delayed, 
Thus to have stood since earth was what it is. 

Yet once it was the busiest haunt, 
Whither, as to a common centre, flocked 
Strangers, and ships, and merchandize : 
Once peace and freedom blest 
The cultivated plain : 
But wealth, that curse of man, 
Blighted the bud of its prosperity : 
Virtue and wisdom, truth and liberty, 
Fled, to return not, until man shall know 
That they alone can give the bliss 

Worthy a soul that claims 
Its kindred with eternity. 

There 's not one atom of yon earth 

But once was living man ; 
Nor the minutest drop of rain, 
That hangeth in its thinnest cloud, 
But flowed in human veins : 
And from the burning plains 
Where Lybian monsters yell, 
From the most gloomy glens 
Of Greenland's sunless clime, 



ICO EARLY POEMS. 

To where the golden fields 
Of fertile England spread 
Their harvest to the day, 
Thou canst not find one spot 
WTiereon no city stood. 

How strange is human pride ! 
I tell thee that those- living things, 
To whom the fragile blade of grass, 
That springeth in the morn 
And perisheth ere noon, 
Is an unbounded world ; 
I tell thee that those viewless beings, 
Whose mansion is the smallest particle 
Of the impassive atmosphere, 
Tii ink, feel and live like man ; 
That their affections and antipathies, 
Like his, produce the laws 
Ruling their moral state ; 
And the minutest throb 
That through their frame diffuses 
The slightest, faintest motion, 
Is fixed and indispensable 
As the majestic laws 
That rule yon rolling orbs. 

The Fairy paused. The Spirit, 
In ecstasy of admiration, felt 
All knowledge of the past revived ; the events 

Of old and wondrous times, 
Which dim tradition interruptedly 
Teaches the credulous vulgar, were unfolded 
In just perspective to the view ; 
Yet dim from their infinitude. 
The Spirit seemed to stand 
High on an isolated pinnacle ; 
The flood of ages combating below, 
The depth of the unbounded universe 
Above, and all around 
Nature's unchanging harmony. 



MUTABILITY. 

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon ; 

How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, 
Streaking the darkness radiantly ! — yet soon 

Night closes round, and they are lost for ever : 

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings 
Give various response to each varying blast, 

To whose frail frame no second motion brings 
One mood or modulation like the last. 

We rest — A dream has power to poison sleep ; 

We rise — One wandering thought pollutes the day ; 
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep ; 

Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away : 

It is the same ! — For, be it joy or sorrow, 

The path of its departure still is free'; 
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow ; 

Nought may endure but Mutability. 



ON DEATH. 



There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in 
the grave, whither thou goest.— Ecclesiastes. 



The pale, the cold, and the moony smile 
Which the meteor beam of a starless night 

Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle, 

Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light, 

Is the flame of life so fickle and wan 

That flits round our steps till their strength is gone. 



162 EARLY POEMS. 

man ! hold thee on in courage of soul ' 
Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way, 

And the billows of cloud that around thee roll 

Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day, 
Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free 
To the universe of destiny. 

% % This world is the nurse of all we know, 
This world is the mother of all we feel, 
And the coming of death is a fearful blow, 

To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel ; 
When all that we know, or feel, or see, 
Shall pass like an unreal mystery. 

The secret things of the grave are there, 
Where all but this frame must surely be, 

Though the fine- wrought eye and the wondrous ear 
No longer Mill live to hear or to see 

All that is great and all that is strange 

1 d the boundless realm of unending change. 

Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death 1 
Who lifteth the veil of what is to come ? 

Who painteth the shadows that are beneath 
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb ? 

Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be 

With the fears and the love for that which we see ? 



A SUMMER-EVENING CHURCHYARD. 

LECHDALE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere 
Each vapour that obscured the sun-set's ray ; 

And pallid evening twines its beaming hair 

In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day : 

Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men, 

Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. 



They breathe their spells towards the" departing day, 
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea ; 

Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway, 
Responding to the charm with its own mystery. 

The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass 

Knows not their gentle motions as they pass. 

Thou too, aerial Pile ! whose pinnacles 

Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, 

Obeyest in silence then' sweet solemn spells, 

Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, 

Around whose lessening and invisible height 

Gather among the stars the clouds of night. 

The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres 

And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, 

Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs, 
Breathed from their wormy beds all living things 
around, 

And mingling with the still night and mute sky 

Its awful hush is felt inaudibly. 

Thus solemnised and softened, death is mild 

And terrorless as this serenest night : 
Here could I hope, like some inquiring child [sight 

Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human 
Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep 
That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. 



LINES. 



The cold earth slept below, 
Above the cold sky shone, 

And all around 

With a chilling sound, 
From caves of ice and fields of snow, 
The breath of night like death did flow 

Beneath the sinking moon. 



54 EARLY POEMS. 

The wintry hedge was black, 
The green grass was not seen, 

The birds did rest 

On the bare thorn's breast, 
Whose roots, beside the pathway track, 
Had bound their folds o'er many a crack 

Which the frost had made between. 

Thine eyes glowed in the glare 
Of the moon's dying light, 

As a fen-fire's beam 

On a sluggish stream 
Gleams dimly — so the moon shone there, 
And it yellowed the strings of thy tangled hair, 

That shook in the wind of night. 

The moon made thy lips pale, beloved ; 
The wind made thy bosom chill ; 

The night did shed 

On thy dear head 
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie 
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky 

Might visit thee at will. 



STANZAS.— APRIL, 1814. 

Away ! the moor is dark beneath the moon, 

Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even : 
Away !• the gathering winds will call the darkness soon, 

And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights 
of heaven. 
Pause not ! The time is past ! Every voice cries, Away ! 

Tempt not with one last glance thy friend's ungentle 

mood : [thy stay : 

Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat 

Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude. 



TO * * * *. 165 

Away, away ! to thy sad and silent home ; 

Pour hitter tears on its desolated hearth ; 
Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come, 

And complicate strange wehs of melancholy mirth ; 
The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around 
thine head, [feet : 

The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy 
But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that 
binds the dead, 
Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou 
and peace may meet. 

The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repdse, 
For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the 
deep; 
Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows ; 
Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its ap- 
pointed sleep. 
Thou in the grave shalt rest — yet till the phantoms flee 
Which that house and heath and garden made dear 
to thee erewhile, 
Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings, 
are not free, 
From the music of two voices, and the light of one 
sweet smile. 



-pQ # # # * t 
AAKPTEI AIOI2Q IIOTMON AIIOTMON. 



Oh ! there are spirits in the air, 

And genii of the evening breeze, 
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair 
As star-beams among twilight trees : — 
Such lovely ministers to meet 
Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet. 



m EARLY POEMS. 

With mountain winds, and babbling springs, 

And mountain seas, that are the voice 
Of these inexplicable things, 

Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice 
When they did answer thee ; but they 
Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away. 

And thou hast sought in starry eyes 

Beams that were never meant for thine, 
Another's wealth ; — tame sacrifice 
To a fond faith ! still dost thou pine \ 
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands, 
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands ? 

Ah ! wherefore didst thou build thine hope 

On the false earth's inconstancy ? 
Did thine own mind afford no scope 
Of love, or moving thoughts to thee ? 
That natural scenes or human smiles 
Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles. 

Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled 

Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted ; 

The glory of the moon is dead ; 
" Night's ghost and dreams have now departed ; 
Thine own soul still is true to thee, 
But changed to a foul fiend through misery. 

This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever 

Beside thee like thy shadow hangs, 
Dream not to chase ; — the mad endeavour 
Would scourge thee to severer pangs. 
Be as thou art. Thy settled fate, 
Dark as it is, all change would aggravate. 



TO WORDSWORTH. 

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know 
That tilings depart which never may return ; 
Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow, 
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. 
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine, 
Which thou too feel'st ; yet I alone deplore. 
Thou wert as a lone star, whose fight did shine 
On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar : 
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood 
Above the blind and battling multitude : 
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave 
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty, — 
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, 
Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be. 



FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN ON THE 
FALL OF BONAPARTE. 

I hated thee, fallen tyrant ! I did groan 
To think that a most unambitious slave, 
Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave 
Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne 
Where it had stood even now : thou didst prefer 
A frail and bloody pomp, which time hast swept 
In fragments towards oblivion. Massacre, 
For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept, 
Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust, 
And stifled thee, their minister. I know 
Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, 
That Virtue owns a more eternal foe 
Than force or fraud : old Custom, legal Crime, 
j And bloody Faith, the foulest birth of time. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE SUNSET. 



There late was One, within whose subtle being, 
As light and wind within some delicate cloud 
That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky, 
Genius and death contended. None may know 
The sweetness of the joy which made his breath 
Fail, like the trances of the summer air, 
When, with the Lady of his love, who then 
First knew the unreserve of mingled being, 
He walked along the pathway of a field, 
Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o'er, 
But to the west was open to the sky. 
There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold 
Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points 
Of the far level grass and nodding flowers, 
And the old dandelion's hoary beard, 
And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay 
On the brown massy woods — and in the east 
The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose 
Between the black trunks of the crowded trees, 
While the faint stars were gathering overhead. — 
u Is it not strange, Isabel," said the youth, 
" I never saw the sun ? We will walk here 
To-morrow ; thou shalt look on it with me." 
That night the youth and lady mingled lay 



HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 169 

In love and sleep — but when the morning came 

The lady found her lover dead and cold. 

Let none believe that God in mercy gave 

That stroke. The lady died not, nor grew wild, 

But year by year lived on — in truth I think 

Her gentleness and patience and sad smiles, 

And that she did not die, but lived to tend 

Her aged father, were a kind of madness, 

If madness 'tis to be unlike the world. 

For but to see her were to read the tale 

"Woven by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts 

Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief ; — 

Her eye-lashes were torn away with tears, 

Her lips and cheeks were like things dead — so pale ; 

Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins 

And weak articulations might be seen 

Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self 

Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day, 

Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee ! 

" Inheritor of more than earth can give, 
Passionless calm, and silence unreproved, 
Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep ! but rest, 
And are the uncomplaining things they seem, 
Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love ; 
Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were — Peace ! " 
This was the only moan she ever made, 



HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 

The awful shadow of some unseen Power 
Floats tho' unseen among us ; visiting 
This various world with as inconstant wing 
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower : 
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain 
shower, 



170 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. ' 

It visits with inconstant glance 

Each human heart and countenance ; 
Like hues and harmonies of evening, 

Like clouds in starlight widely spread, ■ 

Like memory of music fled, 
Like aught that for its grace may be 
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. 

Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate 

With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon 
Of human thought or form, where art thou gone ? 
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, 
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? 

Ask why the sunlight not for ever 

Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river ; 
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown ; 

Why fear and dream and death and birth 

Cast on the daylight of this earth 
Such gloom ; why man has such a scope 
For love and hate, despondency and hope ; 

No voice from some subhmer world hath ever 
To sage or poet these responses given : 
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, 
Remain the records of their vain endeavour ; [sever, 
Frail spells, whose uttered chann might not avail to 
From all we hear and all we see, 
Doubt, chance, and mutability. 
Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven, 
Or music by the night wind sent 
Through strings of some still instrument, 
Or moonlight on a midnight stream, 
Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. 

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart 
And cenie, for some uncertain moments lent. 
Man were immortal and omnipotent, 
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, 
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. 






HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 171 

Thou messenger of sympathies 

That wax and wane in lovers' eyes ; 
Thou, that to human thought art nourishment, 

Like darkness to a dying flame ! 

Depart not as thy shadow came : 
Depart not, lest the grave shoidd be, 
Like life and fear, a dark reality. 

While yet a hoy I sought for ghosts, and sped 

Thro' many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin, 
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing 

Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. 

I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed : 
I was not heard, I saw them not ; 
When musing deeply on the lot 

Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing 
All vital things that wake to bring 
News of birds and blossoming, 

Sudden, thy shadow fell on me ; 

I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstacy ! 

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 

To thee and thine : have I not kept the vow I 
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now 

I call the phantoms of a thousand hours 

Each from his voiceless grave : they have in visioned 
bowers 
Of studious zeal or love's delight 
Outwatched with me the envious night : 

They know that never joy illumed my brow, 
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 
Tins world from its dark slavery, 

That thou, O awful Loveliness, 

Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. 

The day becomes more solemn and serene 
When noon is past : there is a harmony 
In auturnn, and a lustre in its sky, 
Which thro' the summer is not heard nor seen, 
As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! 

i 2 



172 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Thus let thy power, which like the truth 
Of nature on my passive youth 
Descended, to my onward life supply 
Its calm, to one who worships thee, 
And every form containing thee, 
Whom, Spirit fan', thy spells did bind 
To fear himself, and love all human kind. 



MONT BLANC. 

LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOCNl. 



The everlasting universe of things 

Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, 

Now dark — now glittering — now reflecting gloom — 

Now lending splendour, where from secret springs 

The source of human thought its tribute brings 

Of waters, — with a sound but half its own, 

Such as a feeble brook will oft assume 

In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, 

Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, 

Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river 

Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves. 



Thus thou, Ravine of Arve — dark, deep Ravine — 
Thou many-coloured, many- voiced vale, 
Over whose pines and crags and caverns sail 
Fast clouds, shadows, and sunbeams ; awful scene, 
Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down 
From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, 
Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame 
Of lightning through the tempest ; — thou dost lie, 
The giant brood of pines around thee clinging, 
Children of elder time, in whose devotion, 
The chainless winds still come and ever came 



MONT BLANC. 17 

To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging 

To hear — an old and solemn harcnony : 

Thine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep 

Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veil 

Robes some unsculptured image ; the strange sleep 

Which, when the voices of the desert fail, 

Wraps all in its own deep eternity ; — 

Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion 

A loud, lone sound, no other sound can tame ; 

Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, 

Thou art the path of that unresting sound — 

Dizzy Ravine ! and when I gaze on thee, 

I seem as in a trance sublime and strange 

To muse on my own separate fantasy, 

My own, my human mind, which passively 

Now renders and receives fast influencings, 

Holding an unremitting interchange 

With the clear universe of things around ; 

One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings 

Now float above thy darkness, and now rest 

Where that or thou art no unbidden guest, 

In the still cave of the witch Poesy, 

Seeking among the shadows that pass by 

Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, 

Some phantom, some faint image ; till the breast 

From which they fled recalls them, thou art there ! 



Some say that gleams of a remoter world 

Visit the soul in sleep, — that death is slumber, 

And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber 

Of those who wake and live. I look on high ; 

Has some unkown omnipotence unfurled 

The veil of life and death ? or do I lie 

In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep 

Speed far around and inaccessibly 

Its circles ? For the very spirit fails, 

Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep 

That vanishes among the viewless gales ! 



174 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, 

Mont Blanc appears, — still, snowy, and serene — 

Its subject mountains their unearthly forms 

Pile around it, ice and rock ; broad vales between 

Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, 

Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread 

And wind among the accumulated steeps ; 

A desert peopled by the storms alone, 

Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, 

And the wolf tracks her there — how hideously 

Its shapes are heaped around ! rude, bare, and high, 

Ghastly, and scarred, and riven. — Is this the scene 

Where the old Earthquake-demon taught her young 

Ruin 2 Were these their toys ? or did a sea 

Of fire envelop once this silent snow I 

None can reply — all seems eternal now. 

The wilderness has a mysterious tongue 

Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, 

So solemn, so serene, that man may be 

But for such faith with nature reconciled ; 

Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal 

Large codes of fraud and woe ; not understood, 

By all, but which the wise, and great, and good, 

Interpret or make felt, or deeply feel. 



The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, 
Ocean, and all the living things that dwell 
Within the daedal earth ; lightning, and rain, 
Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, 
The torpor of the year when feeble dreams 
Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep 
Holds every future leaf and flower, — the bound 
With which from that detested trance they leap ; 
The works and ways of man, their death and birth, 
And that of him, and all that his may be ; 
All tilings that move and breathe with toil and sound 
Are bom and die, revolve, subside, and swell. 
Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, 



MONT BLANC. 175 

Remote, serene, and inaccessible : 

And this, the naked countenance of earth, 

On which I gaze, even these primaeval mountains, 

Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep, 

Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far 

fountains, 
Slowly rolling on ; there, many a precipice 
Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power 
Have piled — dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, 
A city of death distinct with many a tower 
And wall impregnable of beaming ice. 
Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin 
Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky 
Rolls its perpetual stream ; vast pines are strewing 
Its destined path, or in the mangled soil] 
Branchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down 
From yon remotest waste, have overthrown 
The limits of the dead and living world, ' 
Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place 
Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil ; 
Their food and their retreat for ever gone, 
So much of life and joy is lost. The race 
Of man flies far in dread ; his work and dwelling 
Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, 
And their place is not known. Below, vast caves 
Shine in the rushing torrent's restless gleam, 
Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling 
Meet in the Vale, and one majestic River, 
The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever 
Rolls its loud waters to the ocean waves, 
Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air. 



Mont Blanc yet gleams on high :— the power is there, 

The still and solemn power of many sights 

And many sounds, and much of life and death. 

In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, 

In the lone glare of day, the snows descend 

Upon that Mountain ; none beholds them there, 



176 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, 

Or the star-beams dart through them : — Winds contend 

Silently there, and heap the snow, with breath 

Rapid and strong, but silently ! its home 

The voiceless lightning in these solitudes 

Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods 

Over the snow. The secret strength of things, 

Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome 

Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee ! 

And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, 

If to the human mind's imaginings 

Silence and solitude were vacancy ? 



MARIANNE'S DREAM. 

A pale dream came to a Lady fair, 
And said, A boon, a boon, I pray ! 

I know the secrets of the air ; 

And things are lost in the glare of day, 

Which I can make the sleeping see, 

If they will put their trust in me. 

And thou shalt know of things unknown, 
If thou wilt let me rest between 

The veiny fids, whose fringe is thrown 
Over thine eyes so dark and sheen : 

And half in hope, and half in fright, 

The Lady closed her eyes so bright. 

At first all deadly shapes were driven 
Tumultuously across her sleep, 

And o'er the vast cope of bending heaven 
All ghastly- visaged clouds did sweep ; 

And the Lady ever looked to spy 

If the gold sun shone forth on high. 



MARIANNE'S DREAM. 177 

And as towards the east she turned, 

She saw aloft in the morning air, 
Which now with hues of sunrise burned, 

A great black Anchor rising there ; 
And wherever the Lady turned her eyes 
It hung before her in the skies. 

The sky was blue as the summer sea, 

The depths were cloudless over-head. 
The air was calm as it could be, 

There was no sight nor sound of dread, 
But that black Anchor floating stfll 
Over the piny eastern hill. 

The Lady grew sick with a weight of fear, 

To see that Anchor ever hanging, 
And veiled her eyes ; she then did hear 

The sound as of a dim low clanging, 
And looked abroad if she might know 
Was it aught else, or but the flow 
Of the blood in her own veins, to and fro. 

There was a mist in the sunless air, 

Which shook as it were with an earthquake's shock. 
But the very weeds that blossomed there 

Were moveless, and each mighty rock 
Stood on its basis stedfastly ; 
The Anchor was seen no more on high. 

But piled around with summits hid 

In lines of cloud at intervals, 
Stood many a mountain pyramid 

Among whose everlasting walls 
Two mighty cities shone, and ever 
Through the red mist their domes did quiver. 

On two dread mountains, from whose crest, 

Might seem, the eagle for her brood 
Would ne'er have hung her dizzy nest 

Those tower-encircled cities stood. 



178 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

A vision strange such towers to see, 
Sculptured and wrought so gorgeously, 
Where human art could never be. 

And columns framed of marble white, 
And giant fanes, dome over dome 

Piled, and triumphant gates, all bright 
With workmanship, which could not come 

From touch of mortal instrument, 

Shot o'er the vales, or lustre lent 

From its own shapes magnificent. 

But still the Lady heard that clang 

Filling the wide air far away ; 
And still the mist whose light did hang 

Among the mountains shook alway, 
So that the Lady's heart beat fast, 
As half in joy and half aghast, 
On those high domes her look she cast. 

Sudden from out that city sprung 

A light that made the earth grow red ; 

Two flames that each with quivering tongue 
Licked its high domes, and over-head 

Among those mighty towers and fanes 

Dropped fire, as a volcano rains 

Its sulphurous ruin on the plains. 

And hark ! a rush, as if the deep 

Had burst its bonds ; she looked behind, 
And saw over the western steep 

A raging flood descend, and wind 
Through that wide vale : she felt no fear, 
But said within herself, 'Tis clear 
These towers are Nature's own, and she 
To save them has sent forth the sea. 

And now those raging billows came 
Whore that fair Lady sate, and she 



MARIANNE'S DREAM. 1 

Was borne towards the showering flame 

By the wild waves heaped tumultuously, 
And, on a little plank, the flow 
Of the whirlpool bore her to and fro. 

The waves were fiercely vomited 

From every tower and every dome, 
And dreary light did widely shed 

O'er that vast flood's suspended foam, 
Beneath the smoke which hung its night 
On the stained cope of heaven's light. 

The plank whereon that Lady sate 

Was driven through the chasms, about and about. 
Between the peaks so desolate 

Of the drowning mountain, in and out. 
As the thistle-beard on a whirlwind sails — 
While the flood was filling those hollow vales. 

At last her plank an eddy crost, 

And bore her to the city's wall, 
Which now the flood had reached almost : 

It might the stoutest heart appal 
To hear the fire roar and hiss 
Through the domes of those mighty palaces. 

The eddy whirled her round and round 

Before a gorgeous gate, which stood 
Piercing the clouds of smoke which bound 

Its aery arch with fight like blood ; 
She looked on that gate of marble clear 
With wonder that extinguished fear : 

For it was filled with sculptures rarest, 

Of forms most beautiful and strange, 
Like nothing human, but the fairest 

Of winged shapes, whose legions range 
Throughout the sleep of those who are, 
Like this same Lady, good and fair. 



*8<J MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

And as she looked, still lovelier grew 
Those marble forms ; — the sculptor sure 

Was a strong spirit, and the hue 
Of his own mind did there endure 

After the touch, whose power had braided 

Such grace, was in some sad change faded. 

She looked, the flames were dim, the flood 
Grew tranquil as a woodland river 

Winding through hills in solitude ; 

Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver, 

And their fair limbs to float in motion, 

Like weeds unfolding in the ocean. 

And their lips moved ; one seemed to speak, 
When suddenly the mountain crackt, 

And through the chasm the floor did break 
With an earth-uplifting cataract : 

The statues gave a joyous scream, 

And on its wings the pale thin dream 

Lifted the Lady from the stream. 

The dizzy flight of that phantom pale 
Waked the fair Lady from her sleep, 

And she arose, while from the veil 

Of her dark eyes the dream did creep ; 

And she walked about as one who knew 

That sleep has sights as clear and true 

As any waking eyes can view. 



TO CONSTANTIA. 

SINGING. 

Thl's to be lost and thus to sink and die, 

Perchance were death indeed ! — Constantia, turn ! 

In thy dark eyes a power like light doth he, 

Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which 

Between thy lips, are laid to sleep ; [burn 

Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour it is yet, 

And from thy touch like fire doth leap. 

Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet, 
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget ! 

A breathless awe, like the swift change 

Unseen but felt in youthful slumbers, 
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange, 

Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers. 
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven 

By the enchantment of thy strain, 
And on my shoulders wings are woven, 

To follow its sublime career, 
Beyond the mighty moons that wane 

Upon the verge of nature's utmost sphere, 

Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disappear, 

Her voice is hovering o'er my soul — it lingers 
O'ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings, 

The blood and life within those snowy fingers 
Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings. 

My brain is wild, my breath comes quick — 
The blood is listening in my frame, 

And thronging shadows, fast and thick, 
Fall on my overflowing eyes ; 

My heart is quivering like a flame ; 

As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, 
I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies. 



182 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee, 

Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song 

Flows on, and fills all things with melody. — 
Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong, 

On which, like one in trance upborne, 
Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep, 

Rejoicing like a cloud of morn. 

Now 'tis the breath of summer night, 

Which, when the starry waters sleep, 

Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, 
Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight. 



TO CONSTANTIA. 



The rose that drinks the fountain dew 

In the pleasant air of noon, 
Grows pale and blue with altered hue — 

In the gaze of the nightly moon ; 
For the planet of frost, so cold and bright, 
Makes it wan with her borrowed light. 

Such is my heart — roses are fair, 
And that at best a withered blossom ; 

But thy false care did idly wear 

Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom ! 

And fed with love, like air and dew, 

Its growth 



ON F. G. 



Her voice did quiver as we parted, 

Yet knew I not that heart was broken 
From which it came, and I departed 
Heeding not the words then spoken. 
Misery — Misery, 
This world is all too wide for thee. 



SOXXET.-OZYMANDIAS. 



DEATH. 



They die — the dead return not — Misery 

Sits near an open grave and calls them over, 
A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye — 

They are names of kindred, friend and lover, 
Which he so feebly calls — they all are gone ! 
Fond wretch, all dead, those vacant names alone. 
This most familiar scene, my pain — 
These tombs alone remain. 

Misery, my sweetest friend — oh ! weep no more ! 

Thou wilt not be consoled— I wonder not : 
For I have seen thee from thy dwelling's door 

Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot 
Was even as bright and calm, but transitory, 
And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary ; 
This most familiar scene, my pain — 
These tombs alone remain. 



SONNET.— OZYMANDIAS. 

I met a traveller from an antique land 
Who said : Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, 
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed ; 
And on the pedestal these words appear : 
" My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : 
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair !" 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, 
The lone and level sands stretch far away. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



LINES TO A CRITIC. 

Honey from silkworms who can gather, 
Or silk from the yellow bee ? 

The grass may grow in winter weather 
As soon as hate in me. 

Hate men who cant and men who pray. 
And men who rail like thee ; 

An equal passion to repay 
They are not coy like me. 

Or seek some slave of power and gold, 
To be thy dear heart's mate ; 

Thy love will move that bigot cold, 
Sooner than me thy hate. 

A passion like the one I prove 

Cannot divided be ; 
I hate thy want of truth and love — 

How should I then hate thee ? 



PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES. 

Listen, listen, Mary mine, 

To the whisper of the Apennine, 

It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar, 

Or like the sea on a northern shore, 

Heard in its raging ebb and flow 

By the captives pent in the cave below. 

The Apennine in the light of day 

Is a mighty mountain dim and grey, 

Which between the earth and sky doth lay ; 

But when night comes, a chaos dread 

On the dim starlight then is spread, 

And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm. 



ON A FADED VIOLET. 



LINES. 

That time is dead for ever, child, 
Drowned, frozen, dead for ever ! 

We look on the past, 

And stare aghast 
At the spectres wailing, pale, and ghast, 
Of hopes which thou and I beguiled 

To death on life's dark river. 

The stream we gazed on then rolled by ; 
Its waves are unreturning ; 

But we yet stand 

In a lone land, 
Like tombs to mark the memory 
Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee 

In the light of life's dim morning. 



ON A FADED VIOLET. 

The colour from the flower is gone, 

Which like thy sweet eyes smiled on me ; 

The odour from the flower is flown, 
Which breathed of thee and only thee ! 

A withered, lifeless, vacant form, 
It lies on my abandoned breast, 

And mocks the heart which yet is warm 
With cold and silent rest. 

I weep — my tears revive it not. 

I sigh — it breathes no more on me * 
Its mute and uncomplaining lot 

Is such as mine should be. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE PAST. 



Wilt thou forget the happy hours 
Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers, 
Heaping over their corpses cold 
Blossoms and leaves instead of mould ? 
Blossoms which were the joys that fell, 
And leaves, the hopes that yet remain. 

Forget the dead, the past ? O yet 

There are ghosts that may take revenge for it ; 

Memories that make the heart a tomb, 

Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom, 

And with ghastly whispers tell 

That joy, once lost, is pain. 



TO MARY . 

Mary dear, that you were here 
With your brown eyes bright and clear, 
And your sweet voice, like a bird 
Singing love to its lone mate 

In the ivy bower disconsolate ; 
Voice the sweetest ever heard ! 
And vour brow more * * * 
Than the * * * sky 
Of this azure Italy. 
Mary dear, come to me soon, 

1 am not well whilst thou art far ; 
As sunset to the sphered moon, 
As twilight to the western star, 
Thou, beloved, art to me. 

O Mary dear, that you were here ! 
The Castle echo whispers fi Here ! " 



ESTE. 



MISERY.— A FRAGMENT. 

Come, be happy ! — sit near me, 
Shadow- vested Misery : 
Coy, unwilling, silent bride, 
Mourning in thy robe of pride, 
Desolation — deified ! 

Come, be happy ! — sit near me : 
Sad as I may seem to thee, 
I am happier far than thou, 
Lady, whose imperial brow 
Is endiademed with woe. 

Misery ! we have known each other, 
Like a sister and a brother 
Living in the same lone home, 
Many years — we must live some 
Hours or ages yet to come. 

'Tis an evil lot, and yet 

Let us make the best of it ; 

If love can live when pleasure dies, 

We two will love, till in our eyes 

This heart's Hell seem Paradise. 

Come, be happy ! — lie thee down 
On the fresh grass newly mown, 
Where the grasshopper doth sing 
Merrily — one joyous thing 
In a world of sorrowing ! 

There our tent shall be the willow, 
And mine arm shall be thy pillow ; 
Sounds and odours, sorrowful 
Because they once were sweet, shall lull 
Us to slumber deep and dull. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Ha ! thy frozen pulses nutter 

With a love thou dar'st not utter. 

Thou art murmuring — thou art weeping — 

Is thine icy bosom leaping 

While my burning heart lies sleeping ? 

Kiss me ; — oh ! thy lips are cold ; 
Round my neck thine arms enfold — 
They are soft, but chill and dead ; 
And thy tears upon my head 
Burn like points of frozen lead. 

Hasten to the bridal bed — 
Underneath the grave 'tis spread : 
In darkness may our love be hid, 
Oblivion be our coverlid — 
We may rest, and none forbid. 

Clasp me, till our hearts be grown 
Like two shadows into one ; 
Till this dreadful transport may 
Like a vapour fade away 
In the sleep that lasts alway. 

We may dream in that long sleep, 
That we are not those who weep ; 
Even as Pleasure dreams of thee, 
Life-deserting misery, 
Thou mayest dream of her with me. 

Let us laugh, and make our mirth, 
At the shadows of the earth, 
As dogs bay the moonlight clouds, 
Which, like spectres wrapt in shrouds, 
Pass o'er night in multitudes. 

All the wide world, beside us 
Show like multitudinous 
Puppets passing from a scene ; 
What but mockery can they mean, 
Where I am — where thou hast been ? 



STANZAS, 

WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES. 

The sun is warm, the sky is clear, 

The waves are dancing fast and bright, 
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear 

The purple noon's transparent light : 
The breath of the moist air is light, 

Around its unexpanded buds ; 
Like many a voice of one delight, 

The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, 
The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's. 

I see the Deep's untrampled floor 

With green and purple sea-weeds strown ; 
I see the waves upon the shore, 

Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown : 
I sit upon the sands alone, 

The lightning of the noontide ocean 
Is flashing round me, and a tone 

Arises from its measured motion, 
How sweet ! did any heart now share in my emotion. 

Alas ! I have nor hope nor health, 

Nor peace within nor calm around, 
Nor that content surpassing wealth 

The sage in meditation found, 
And walked with inward glory crowned — 

Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. 
Others I see whom these surround — 

Smiling they live, and call life pleasure ; 
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. 

Yet now despair itself is mild, 

Even as the winds and waters are ; 

I could he down like a tired child, 
And weep away the life of care 



190 MISCELLANEOUS POE31S. 

Which I have borne, and yet must bear, 
Till death like sleep might steal on me, 
And I might feel in the warm air 

My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. 

Some might lament that I were cold, 

As I when this sweet day is gone, 
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, 

Insults with this untimely moan ; 
They might lament — for I am one 

Whom men love not, — and yet regret, 
Unlike this day, which, when the sun 

Shall on its stainless glory set, 
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. 



SONNET. 



Lift not the painted veil which those who live 
Call Life ; though unreal shapes be pictured there, 
And it but mimic all we would believe 
With colours idly spread, — behind, lurk Fear 
And Hope, twin Destinies ; who ever weave 
Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear. 

I knew one who had lifted it — he sought, 
For his lost heart was tender, things to love, 
But found them not, alas ! nor was there aught 
The world contains, the which he could approve. 
Through the unheeding many he did move, 
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot 
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove 
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not. 



SONG 

TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND. 

Men of England, wherefore plough 
For the lords who lay ye low ? 
Wherefore weave with toil and care, 
The rich robes your tyrants wear ? 

Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save, 
From the cradle to the grave, 
Those ungrateful drones who would 
Drain your sweat — nay, drink your blood ! 

Wherefore, Bees of England, forge 
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, 
That these stingless drones may spoil 
The forced produce of your toil ? 

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm, 
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm ? 
Or what is it ye buy so dear 
With your pain and with your fear ? 

The seed ye sow, another reaps ; 
The wealth ye find, another keeps ; 
The robes ye weave, another wears ; 
The arms ye forge, another bears. 

Sow seed, — but let no tyrant reap ; 
Find wealth, — let no impostor heap ; 
Weave robes, — let not the idle wear ; 
Forge arms, — : in your defence to bear. 

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells ; 
In halls ye deck, another dwells. 
Why shake the chains ye wrought % Ye see 
The steel ye tempered glance on ye. 



192 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

With plough and spade, and hoe and loom, 
Trace your grave, and build your tomb, 
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair 
England be your sepulchre. 



LINES, 

WRITTEN TURING THE CASTLEREAGH ADMINISTRATION. 

Corpses are cold in the tomb, 
Stones on the pavement are dumb, 
Abortions are dead in the womb, 
And their mothers look pale — like the white shore 
Of Albion, free no more. 

Her sons are as stones in the way — 
They are masses of senseless clay — 
They are trodden and move not away, — 
The abortion, with which she travaileth, 
Is Liberty — smitten to death. 

Then trample and dance, thou Oppressor, 
For thy Victim is no redressor, 
Thou art sole lord and possessor 
Of her corpses, and clods, and abortions — they pave 
Thy path to the grave. 

Hearest thou the festival din 
Of death, and destruction, and sin, 
And wealth, crying Havoc ! within — 
'Tis the Bacchanal triumph, which makes truth dumb, 
Thine Epithalamium. 

Ay, marry thy ghastly wife ! 
Let fear, and disquiet, and strife 
Spread thy couch in the chamber of life, 
Marry Ruin, thou tyrant ! and God be thy guide 
To the bed of the bride. 



ENGLAND IN 1819. 

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, — 

Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow 

Through public scorn — mud from a muddy spring,- — 

Rulers, who neither see, nor feel, nor know, 

But leech-like to their fainting country cling, 

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, — 

A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, — 

An army, which liberticide and prey 

Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, 

Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay, — 

Religion Christ-less, Godless — a book sealed ; 

A Senate — Time's worst statute unrepealed, — 

Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may 

Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day. 



AN ODE, 

TO THE ASSERTORS OF LIBERTY. 

Arise, arise, arise ! 
There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread ; 

Be your wounds like eyes 
To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead. 
What other grief were it just to pay ? 
Your sons, your wives, your brethren, were they ; 
Who said they were slain on the battle day ? 

Awaken, awaken, awaken ! 
The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes ; 

Be the cold chains shaken 
To the dust, where your kindred repose, repose : 
Their bones in the grave will start and move, 
When they hear the voices of those they love, 
Most loud in the holy combat above. 



194 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Wave, wave high the banner ! 
When Freedom is riding to conquest by : 

Though the slaves that fan her 
Be famine and toil, giving sigh for sigh. 
And ye who attend her imperial car, 
Lift not your hands in the banded war, 
But in her defence whose children ye are. 

Glory, glory, glory, 
To those who have greatly suffered and done ! 

Never name in story 
Was greater than that which ye shall have won. 
Conquerors have conquered their foes alone, 
Whose revenge, pride, and power, they have overthrown: 
Ride ye, more victorious, over your own. 

Bind, bind every brow 
With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine : 

Hide the blood-stains now 
With hues which sweet nature has made divine 
Green strength, azure hope, and eternity. 
But let not the pansy among them be ; 
Ye were injured, and that means memory. 



ODE TO HEAVEN. 

Chorus of Spirits. 

FIRST SPIRIT. 

Palace-roof of cloudless nights ! 
Paradise of golden lights ! 

Deep, immeasurable, vast, 
Which art now, and which wert then ! 

Of the present and the past, 
Of the eternal where and when, 

Presence-chamber, temple, home, 

Ever-canopying dome, 

Of acts and ages yet to come ! 



ODE TO HEAVEN. 

Glorious shapes have life in thee, 
Earth, and all earth's company ; 

Living globes which ever throng 
Thy deep chasms and wildernesses ; 

And green worlds that glide along ; 
And swift stars with flashing tresses ; 

And icy moons most cold and bright, 

And mighty suns beyond the night, 

Atoms of intensest light. 

Even thy name is as a god, 
Heaven ! for thou art the abode 

Of that power which is the glass 
Wherein man his nature sees. 

Generations as they pass 
Worship thee with bended knees. 

Their unremaining gods and they 

Like a river roll away ; 

Thou remainest such alway. 

SECOND SPIRIT. 

Thou art but the mind's first chamber, 

Round which its young fancies clamber, 
Like weak insects in a cave, 

Lighted up by stalactites ; 
But the portal of the grave, 

Where a world of new delights 
Will make thy best glories seem 
But a dim and noonday gleam 
From the shadow of a dream ! 

THIRD SPIRIT. 

Peace ! the abyss is wreathed with scorn 
At your presumption, atom-born ! 

What is heaven ? and what are ye 
Who its brief expanse inherit 1 

What are suns and spheres which flee 
With the instinct of that spirit 

k 2 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Of which ye are but a part % 
Drops which Nature's mighty heart 
Drives through thinnest veins. Depart ! 

What is heaven ? a globe of dew, 
Filling in the morning new 

Some eyed flower, whose young leaves waken 
On an unimagined world : 

Constellated suns unshaken, 
Orbits measureless, are furled 

In that frail and fadmg sphere, 

With ten millions gathered there, 

To tremble, gleam, and disappear. 



ODE TO THE WEST WIND.* 



O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 
Pestilence-stricken multitudes : O thou, 
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 

* This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood 
that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that 
tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and 
animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the 
autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset, with a 
violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent 
thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions. 

The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third 
stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the 
bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathises with 
that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently 
influenced by the winds which announce it. 



ODE TO THE WEST WIND. 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, 
Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow 

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
With living hues and odours plain and hill : 

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere ; 
Destroyer and preserver ; hear, oh hear ! 



Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, 
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, 
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, 

Angels of rain and lightning : there are spread 
On the blue surface of thine airy surge, 
Like the bright hah' uplifted from the head 

Of some fierce Msenad, even from the dim verge 

Of the horizon to the zenith's height, 

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 

Of the dying year, to which this closing night 
Will be the doom of a vast sepulchre, 
Vaulted with all thy congregated might 

Of vapours from whose solid atmosphere 

Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst : Oh, hear ! 



Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, 

Beside a pumice isle in Baite's bay, 
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
Quivering within the wave's in tenser day, 



198 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers 

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them ! Thou 

For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, 
And tremble and despoil themselves : Oh hear ! 



If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear ; 

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee ; 

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 

The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
Than thou, uncontrollable ! If even 
I were as in my boyhood, and could be 

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 

As then, when to outstrip the skyey speed 

Scarce seemed a vision, I would ne'er have striven 

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 
Oh ! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! 
I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! 

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 
One too like thee : tameless, and swift, and proud. 



Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : 
What if my leaves are falling like its own ! 
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, 
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, 
My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 



Drive my dead thoughts over the universe 
Like withered leaves to quicken a new hirth ; 
And, by the incantation of this verse, 

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind ! 
Be through my lips to unawakened earth 

The trumpet of a prophecy ! O wind, 

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind ? 



SIMILES, 

FOR TWO POLITICAL CHARACTERS OP 1819. 

As from an ancestral oak 

Two empty ravens sound their clarion, 
Yell by yell, and croak by croak, 
When they scent the noonday smoke 

Of fresh human carrion : — 

As two gibbering night-birds flit, 
From then' bowers of deadly hue, 

Through the night to frighten it, 

When the morn is in a fit, 

And the stars are none or few : — 

As a shark and dog-fish wait 

Under an Atlantic isle, 
For the negro-ship, whose freight 
Is the theme of their debate, 

Wrinkling their red gills the while — 

Are ye, two vultures sick for battle, 

Two scorpions under one wet stone, 
Two bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle, 
Two crows perched on the murrained cattle, 
Two vipers tangled into one. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE MEDUSA OF LEONARDO DA VINCI, 

IN THE FLORENTINE GALLERY. 

It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky, 
Upon the cloudy mountain peak supine ; 

Below, far lands are seen tremblingly ; 
Its horror and its beauty are divine. 

Upon its lips and eyehds seem to lie 

Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine 

Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, 

The agonies of anguish and of death. 

Yet it is less the horror than the grace 
Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone 

Whereon the lineaments of that dead face 
Are graven, till the characters be grown 

Into itself, and thought no more can trace ; 
'Tis the melodious hues of beauty thrown 

Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain, 

Which humanize and harmonize the strain. 

And from its head as from one body grow, 
As [ ] grass out of a watery rock, 

Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow, 
And their long tangles in each other lock, 

And with unending involutions show 

Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock 

The torture and the death within, and saw 

The solid air with many a ragged jaw. 

And from a stone beside, a poisonous eft 
Peeps idly into these Gorgonian eyes ; 

Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft 
Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise 



AN EXHORTATION. 

Out of the cave this hideous light hath cleft, 

And he comes hastening like a moth that hies 
After a taper ; and the midnight sky- 
Flares, a light more dread than obscurity. 

'Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror ; 

For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare 
Kindled by that inextricable error, 

Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air 
Become a [ ] and ever-shifting mirror 

Of all the beauty and the terror there — 
A woman's countenance, with serpent locks, 
Gazing in death on heaven from those wet rocks. 



AN EXHORTATION. 

Cameleons feed on light and air : 
Poets' food is love and fame : 

If in this wide world of care 
Poets could but find the same 

With as little toil as they, 

Would they ever change their hue 
As the light cameleons do, 

Suiting it to every ray 

Twenty times a-day 1 

Poets are on this cold earth, 

As cameleons might be, 
Hidden from their early birth 

In a cave beneath the sea ; 
Where light is, cameleons change ! 

Where love is not, poets do : 

Fame is love disguised : if few 
Find either, never think it strange 
That poets range. 

k 3 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Yet dare not stain with wealth or power 

A poet's free and heavenly mind : 
If bright canieleons should devour 

Any food but beams and wind, 
They would grow as earthly soon 

As their brother lizards are. 

Children of a sunnier star, 
Spirits from beyond the moon, 
Ob, refuse the boon ! 



TO WILLIAM; SHELLEY. 

i With what truth I may say — 

Koraa! Roma! Roma! 
Non e piu come era prima !) 



My lost William, thou in whom 

Some bright spirit lived, and did 
That decaying robe consume 

Which its lustre faintly hid, 
Here its ashes find a tomb, 
But beneath this pyramid 
Thou art not — if a thing divine 
Like thee can die, thy funeral shrine 
Is thy mother's grief and mine. 

Where art thou, my gentle child ? 

Let me think thy spirit feeds, 
With its life intense and mild, 

The love of living leaves and weeds, 
Among these tombs and ruins wild ; — 

Let me think that through low seeds 
Of the sweet flowers and sunny grass, 
Into their hues and scents may pass, 
A portion 



TO WILLIAM SHELLEY. 

The billows on the beach are leaping around it, 

The bark is weak and frail, 
The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it 

Darkly strew the gale. 
Come with me, thou delightful child, 
•Come with me, though the wave is wild, 
And the winds are loose, we must not stay, 
Or the slaves of law may rend thee away. 

They have taken thy brother and sister dear, 

They have made them unfit for thee ; 
They have withered the smile and dried the tear, 

Which should have been sacred to me. 
To a blighting faith and a cause of crime 
They have bound them slaves in youthly time, 
And they will curse my name and thee, 
Because we fearless are and free. 

Come thou, beloved as thou art, 

Another sleepeth still, 
Near thy sweet mother's anxious heart, 

Which thou with joy wilt fill ; 
With fairest smiles of wonder thrown 
On that \vhich is indeed our own. 
And which in distant lands will be 
The dearest playmate unto thee. 

Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever, 

Or the priests of the evil faith ; 
They stand on the brink of that raging river, 

Whose waves they have tainted with death. 
It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells, 
Around them it foams and rages and swells ; 
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see, 
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity. 



204 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Rest, rest, shriek not, thou gentle child ! 

The rocking of the boat thou fearest, 
And the cold spray and the clamour wild ? 

There sit between us two, thou dearest ; 
Me and thy mother — well we know 
The storm at which thou tremblest so, 
With- all its dark and hungry graves, 
Less cruel than the savage slaves 
Who hunt thee o'er these sheltering waves. 

This hour will in thy memory 

Be a dream of days forgotten ; 
We soon shall dwell by the azure sea 
Of serene and golden Italy, 
Or Greece, the Mother of the free. 
And I will teach thine infant tongue 
To call upon their heroes old 
In their own language, and will mould 
Thy growing spirit in the flame 
Of Grecian lore ; that by such name 
A patriot's birthright thou mayst claim. 



A VISION OF THE SEA. 

p Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sail 
Are flickering in ribbons within the fierce gale : 
From the stark night of vapours the dim rain is driven, 
And when lightning is loosed like a deluge from heaven, 
She sees the black trunks of the water-spouts spin, 
And bend, as if heaven was ruining in, 
Which they seemed to sustain with their terrible mass 
As if ocean had sunk from beneath them : they pass 
To their graves in the deep with an earthquake of sound, 
And the waves and the thunders, made silent around, 
Leave the wind to its echo. The vessel, now tossed 
Through the low trailing rack of the tempest, is lost 



A VISION OF THE SEA. 205 

In the skirts of the thunder-cloud : now down the sweep 

Of the wind-cloven wave to the chasm of the deep 

It sinks, and the walls of the watery vale 

Whose depths of dread calm are unmoved by the gale, 

Dim mirrors of ruin, hang gleaming about ; 

While the surf, like a chaos of stars, like a rout 

Of death-flames, like whirlpools of fire-flowing iron, 

With splendom* and terror the black ship environ ; 

Or like sulphur-flakes hurled from a mine of pale fire, 

In fountains spout o'er it. In many a spire 

The pyramid-billows, with white points of brine, 

In the cope of the lightning inconstantly shine, 

As piercing the sky from the floor of the sea. 

The great ship seems splitting ! it cracks as a tree, 
While an earthquake is splintering its root, ere the blast 
Of the whirlwind that stript it of branches has past. 
The intense thunder-balls which are raining from heaven 
Have shattered its mast, and it stands black and riven. 
The chinks suck destruction. The heavy dead hulk 
On the living sea rolls an inanimate bulk, 
Like a corpse on the clay which is hung'ring to fold 
Its corruption around it. Meanwhile, from the hold, 
One deck is burst up from the waters below, 
And it splits like the ice when the thaw-breezes blow 
O'er the lakes of the desert ! Who sit on the other ? 
Is that all the crew that he burying each other, 
Like the dead in a breach, round the foremast ? Are 

those 
Twin tigers, who burst, when the waters arose, 
In the agony of terror, their chains in the hold 
(What now makes them tame, is what then made them 

bold) 
Who crouch, side by side, and have driven, like a crank, 
The deep grip of their claws through the vibrating 
Are these all ? [plank ? 

Nine weeks the tall vessel had lain 
On the windless expanse of the watery plain, 



206 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Where the death-darting sun cast no shadow at noon, 
And there seemed to be fire in the beams of the moon, 
Till a lead-coloured fog gathered up from the deep, 
Whose breath was quick pestilence ; then, the cold sleep 
Crept, like blight through the ears of a thick field of 

corn, 
O'er the populous vessel. And even and morn, 
With their hammocks for coffins the seamen aghast 
Like dead men the dead limbs of their comrades cast 
Down the deep, which closed on them above and around, 
And the sharks and the dog-fish their grave-clothes 

unbound, 
And were glutted like Jews with this manna rained down 
From God on their wilderness. One after one 
The mariners died ; on the eve of this day, 
When the tempest was gathering in cloudy array, 
But seven remained. Six the thunder had smitten, 
And they lie black as mummies on which Time has 

written 
His scoru of the embalmer ; the seventh, from the deck 
An oak splinter pierced through his breast and his back, 
And hung out to the tempest, a wreck on the wreck. 

No more ? At the helm sits a woman more fair 
Than heaven, when, unbinding its star-braided hair, 
It sinks with the sun on the earth and the sea. 
She clasps a bright child on her upgathered knee, 
It laughs at the lightning, it mocks the mixed thunder 
Of the air and the sea, with desire and with wonder 
It is beckoning the tigers to rise and come near, 
It would play with those eyes where the radiance of fear 
Is outshining the meteors ; its bosom beats high, 
The heart-fire of pleasure has kindled its eye ; 
Whilst its mother's is lustreless. " Smile not, my child, 
But sleep deeply and sweetly, and so be beguiled 
Of the pang that awaits us, whatever that be, 
So dreadful since thou must divide it with me ! 
Dream, sleep ! This pale bosom, thy cradle and bed, 
Will it rock thee not ? infant ? 'Tis beating with dread ! 






A VISION OF THE SEA. 207 

Alas ! what is life, what is death, what are we, 
That when the ship sinks we no longer may be ? 
What ! to see thee no more, and to feel thee no more ? 
To be after life what we have been before ? 
Not to touch those sweet hands, not to look on those 

eyes, 
Those lips, and that hair, all that smiling disguise 
Thou yet wearest, sweet spirit, which I, day by day, 
Have so long called my child, but which now fades away 
Like a rainbow, and I the fallen shower ? " 

Lo ! the ship 
Is settling, it topples, the leeward ports dip ; 
The tigers leap up when they feel the slow brine 
Crawling inch by inch on them ; hair, ears, linibs, and 

eyne, 
Stand rigid with horror ; a loud, long, hoarse cry 
Burst at once from their vitals tremendously, 
And 'tis borne down the mountainous vale of the wave, 
Rebounding, like thunder, from crag to cave, 
Mixed with the clash of the lashing rain, 
Hurried on by the might of the hurricane : 
The hurricane came from the west, and past on 
By the path of the gate of the eastern sun, 
Transversely dividing the stream of the storm ; 
As an arrowy serpent, pursuing the form 
Of an elephant, bursts through the brakes of the waste. 
Black as a cormorant the screaming blast, 
Between ocean and heaven, like an ocean, past, 
Till it came to the clouds on the verge of the world 
Which, based on the sea and to heaven upcurled, 
Like columns and walls did surround and sustain 
The dome of the tempest ; it rent them in twain, 
As a flood rends its barriers of mountainous crag : 
And the dense clouds in many a ruin and rag, 
Like the stones of a temple ere earthquake has past, 
Like the dust of its fall, on the whirlwind are cast ; 
They are scattered like foam on the torrent ; and where 
The wind has burst out through the chasm, from the air 



208 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Of clear morning, the beams of the sunrise flow in. 

Unimpeded, keen, golden, and crystalline, 

Banded armies of light and of air ; at one gate 

They encounter, but interpenetrate. 

And that breach in the tempest is widening away, 

And the caverns of cloud are torn up by the day, 

And the fierce winds are sinking with weary wings, 

Lulled by the motion and mm*murings, 

And the long glassy heave of the rocking sea, 

And overhead glorious, but dreadful to see, 

The wrecks of the tempest, like vapours of gold, 

Are consuming in sunrise. The heaped waves behold, 

The deep calm of blue heaven dilating above, 

And, like passions made still by the presence of Love, 

Beneath the clear surface reflecting it slide 

Tremulous with soft influence ; extending its tide 

From the Andes to Atlas, round mountain and isle, 

Round sea-birds and wrecks, paved with heaven's azure 

smile, 
The wide world of waters is vibrating. 

Where 
Is the ship ? On the verge of the wave where it lay 
One tiger is mingled in ghastly affray 
With a sea-snake. The foam and the smoke of the 

battle 
Stain the clear air with sunbows; the jar, and the rattle 
Of solid bones crushed by the infinite stress 
Of the snake's adamantine voluminousness ; 
And the hum of the hot blood that spouts and rains 
Where the gripe of the tiger has wounded the veins, 
Swollen with rage, strength, and effort ; the whirl and 

the splash 
As of some hideous engine whose brazen teeth smash 
The thin winds and soft waves into thunder ! the screams 
And hissings crawl fast o'er the smooth ocean-streams, 
Each sound like a centipede. Near this commotion, 
A blue shark is hanging within the blue ocean, 
The fin-winged tomb of the victor. The other 



Is winning his way from the fate of his brother, 
To his own with the speed of despair. Lo ! a boat 
Advances ; twelve rowers with the impulse of thought 
Urge on the keen keel, the brine foams. At the stern 
Three marksmen stand levelling. Hot bullets burn 
In the breast of the tiger, which yet bears him on 
To his refuge and ruin. One fragment alone, 
'Tis dwmdhng and sinking, 'tis now almost gone, 
Of the wreck of the vessel peers out of the sea. 
With her left hand she grasps it impetuously, 
With her right she sustains her fair infant. Death, 

Fear, 
Love, Beauty, are mixed in the atmosphere, 
Which trembles and burns with the fervour of dread 
Around her wild eyes, her bright hand, and her head, 
Like a meteor of light o'er the waters ! her child 
Is yet smiling, and playing, and murmuring : so smiled 
The false deep ere the storm. Like a sister and brother 
The child and the ocean still smile on each other, 
Whilst 



TO- 



I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden, 
Thou needest not fear mine ; 

My spirit is too deeply laden 
Ever to burthen thine. 

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, 
Thou needest not fear mine ; 

Innocent is the heart's devotion 
With which I worship thine, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE CLOUD. 

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 

From the seas and the streams ; 
I bear light shades for the leaves when laid 

In their noon-day dreams. 
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 

The sweet buds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 

As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 

And whiten the green plains under, 
And then again I dissolve it in rain, 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 



I sift the snow on the mountains below, 

And their great pines groan aghast ; 
And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, 

Lightning my pilot sits, 
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, 

It struggles and howls at fits ; 
Over earth and ocean with gentle motion, 

This pilot is guiding me, 
Lured by the love of the genii that move 

In the depths of the purple sea ; 
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 

Over the lakes and the plains, 
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 

The Spirit he loves remains ; 
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, 

Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 



THE CLOUD. 



The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 

And his burning plumes outspread, 
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, 

When the morning star shines dead. 
As on the jag of a mountain crag, 

Which an earthquake rocks and swings, 
An eagle alit one moment may sit 

In the light of its golden wings. 
And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, 

Its ardours of rest and of love, 
And the crimson pall of eve may fall 

From the depth of heaven above, 
With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, 

As still as a brooding dove. 

IV. 

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, 

Whom mortals call the moon, 
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, 

By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 

Which only the angels hear, 
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 

The stars peep behind her and peer ; 
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, 

Like a swarm of golden bees, 
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 

Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, 
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 

Are each paved with the moon and these. 

v. 
I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone, 

And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ; 
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, 

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, 

Over a torrent sea, 



212 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 

The mountains its columns be. 
The triumphal arch through which I march, 

With hurricane, fire, and snow, 
When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, 

Is the million-coloured bow ; 
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, 

While the moist earth was laughing below. 



I am the daughter of earth and water, 

And the nursling of the sky : 
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 

I change, but I cannot die. 
For after the rain, when with never a stain, 

The pavilion of heaven is bare, 
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, 

Build up the blue dome of air, 
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 

And out of the caverns of rain, 
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 

I arise and unbuild it again. 



LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. 

The fountains mingle with the river, 

And the rivers with the ocean, 
The winds of heaven mix for ever 

With a sweet emotion ; 
Nothing in the world is single ; 

All tilings by a law divine 
In one another's being mingle — 

Why not I with thine ? 



TO A SKYLARK. 

See the mountains kiss high heaven, 

And the waves clasp one another ; 
No sister flower would he forgiven 

If it disdained its brother : 
And the sunlight clasps the earth, 

And the moonbeams kiss the sea :- 
What are all these kissings worth, 

If thou kiss not me ? 



TO A SKYLARK. 



Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 

Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 
Pourest thy fuU heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

Higher still and higher, 

From the earth thou springest 
Like a cloud of fire ; 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 
in. 
In the golden lightning 

Of the sunken sun, 
O'er which clouds are brightening, 
Thou dost float and run ; 
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 
A "'" 

IV, 

The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight ; 
Like a star of heaven, 
In the broad day -light 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. 






214 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

v. 
Keen as are the arrows 
Of that silver sphere, 
Whose intense lamp narrows 
In the white dawn clear, 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 

vr. 
All the earth and air 

With thy voice is loud, 
As, when night is bare, 
From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over- 
flowed. 

VII. 

What thou art we know not ; 

What is most like thee ? 
From rainbow clouds there flow not 
Drops so bright to see, 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 

VIII. 

Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 

Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 

IX. 

Like a high-born maiden 

In a palace tower, 
Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower : 

X. 

Like a glow-worm golden 

In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 
Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the 



TO A SKYLARK. 



Like a rose embowered 

In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflowered, 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged 
thieves. 

xrr. 
Sound of vernal showers 

On the twinkling grass, 
Rain-awakened flowers, 
AU that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 

xin. 
Teach us, sprite or bird, 

What sweet thoughts are thine : 
I have never heard 
Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 

XIV. 

Chorus hymeneal, 

Or triumphal chaunt, 
Matched with thine would be all 

But an empty vaunt — 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 

XV. 

What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain % 
What fields, or waves, or mountains 1 

What shapes of sky or plain ? 
What love of thine own kind \ what ignorance of pain? 

XVI. 

With thy clear keen joyance 

Languor cannot be : 
Shadow of annoyance 
Never came near thee : 
Thou lovest ; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 



216 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

XVII. 

Waking or asleep, 

Thou of death must deem 
Tilings more true and deep 

Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream \ 

xvin. 
We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not : 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught ; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 

XIX. 

Yet if we could scorn 

Hate, and pride, and fear ; 
If we were things born 

Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 

XX. 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound, 
Better than all treasures 

That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 



Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow, 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 



ODE TO LIBERTY. 



Yet freedom, yet, thy banner torn but flying, 
Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind- 



A glorious people vibrated again 

The lightning of the nations : Liberty, 
From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, 

Scattering contagious fire into the sky, 
Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, 
And, in the rapid plumes of song, 
Clothed itself sublime and strong ; 
As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, 
Hovering in verse o'er its accustomed prey ; 
Till from its station in the heaven of fame 
The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray 
Of the remotest sphere of living flame 
Which paves the void, was from behind it flung, 
As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came 
A voice out of the deep ; I will record the same. 



The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth ; 

The burning stars of the abyss were hurl'd 

Into the depths of heaven. The daedal earth, 

That island in the ocean of the world, 
Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air : 
But this divinest universe 
Was yet a chaos and a curse, 
For thou wert not : but power from worst producing 
worse, 



218 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, 

And of the birds, and of the watery forms, 
And there was war among them and despair 
Within them, raging without truce or terms : 
The bosom of their violated nurse 

Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on 

worms, 
And men on men ; each heart was as a hell of storms. 



Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied 

His generations under the pavilion 
Of the sun's throne : palace and pyramid, 

Temple and prison, to many a swarming million, 
Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. 
This human living multitude 
Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, 
For thou wert not; but o'er the populous solitude, 
Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves, 

Hung tyranny ; beneath, sate deified 
The sister-pest, congregator of slaves ; 
Into the shadow of her pinions wide, 
Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood, 
Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, 
Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. 



The nodding promontories, and blue isles, 

And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves 
Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles 

Of favouring heaven : from their enchanted caves 
Prophetic echoes flung dim melody 
On the unapprehensive wild. 
The vine, the corn, the olive mild, 
Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled ; 
And like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, 

Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, 
Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, 



ODE TO LIBERTY. 219 

Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein 
Of Parian stone ; and yet a speechless child, 
Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain 
Her lidless eyes for thee ; when o'er the iEgean main 



Athens arose : a city such as vision 

Builds from the purple crags and silver towers 
Of battlemented cloud, as in derision 

Of kingliest masonry : the ocean floors 
Pave it ; the evening sky pavilions it ; 
Its portals are inhabited 
By thunder-zoned winds, each head 
Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded, 
A divine work ! Athens diviner yet 

Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will 
Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set ; 
For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill 
Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead 
In marble immortality, that hill 
Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. 



Within the surface of Time's fleeting river 

Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay 
Immovably unquiet, and for ever 

It trembles, but it cannot pass away ! 
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder 
With an earth-awakening blast 
Through the caverns of the past ; 
Religion veils her eyes ; Oppression shrinks aghast : 
A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, 
Which soars where Expectation never flew, 
Rending the veil of space and time asunder ! 

One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew ; 
One sun illumines Heaven ; one spirit vast 
With life and love makes chaos ever new, 
As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, 

Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmaean Msenad *, 
She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest 

From that Elysian food was yet unweaned ; 
And many a deed of terrible uprightness 
By thy sweet love was sanctified ; 
And in thy smile, and by thy side, 
Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. 

But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness, 

And gold profaned thy capitolian throne, 

Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness, 

The senate of the tyrants : they sunk prone 

Slaves of one tyrant. Palatums sighed 

Faint echoes of Ionian song ; that tone 

Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown. 



From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, 
Or piny promontory of the Arctic main, 
Or utmost islet inaccessible, 

Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, 
Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, 
And every Naiad's ice-cold urn, 
To talk in echoes sad and stem, 
Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn ? 
For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks 
Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's 
sleep. 
What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks, 
Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not 
weep, 
When from its sea of death to kill and burn, 
The Galilean serpent forth did creep, 
And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. 



* See the Bacchas of Euripides. 



ODE TO LIBERTY. 221 

IX. 

A thousand years the Earth cried, Where art thou ? 

And then the shadow of thy coming fell 
On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow : 

And many a warrior-peopled citadel, 
Like rocks, which fire lifts out of the fiat deep, 
Arose in sacred Italy, 
Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea 
Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned 
majesty ; 
That multitudinous anarchy did sweep, 

And burst around their walls, like idle foam, 
Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep, 
Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb 
Dissonant arms ; and Art which cannot die, 
With divine want traced on our earthly home 
Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome. 

x. 

Thou huntress swifter than the Moon ! thou terror 
Of the world's wolves ! thou bearer of the quiver, 
Whose sun-like shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, 
As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever 
In the calm regions of the orient day ! 

Luther caught thy wakening glance : 
Like lightning from his leaden lance 
Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance 
In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay ; 

And England's prophets hailed thee as their queen, 
In songs whose music cannot pass away, 
Though it must flow for ever : not unseen 
Before the spirit-sighted countenance 

Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene 
Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. 

XI. 

The eager hours and unreluctant years 
As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood, 

Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears 
Darkening each other with their multitude, 



222 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

And cried aloud, Liberty ! Indignation 
Answered Pity from her cave ; 
Death grew pale within the grave, 
And desolation howled to the destroyer, Save ! 
When, like heaven's sun, girt by the exhalation 

Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise, 
Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation 

Like shadows : as if day had cloven the skies 
At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, 
Men started, staggering with a glad surprise, 
Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. 



Thou heaven of eai'th! what spells could pall thee then, 

In ominous eclipse ? A thousand years, 
Bred from the shme of deep oppression's den, 

Dyed all thy licmid light with blood and tears, 
Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away; 
How like Bacchanals of blood 
Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood 
Destruction's sceptered slaves, and Folly's mitred brood! 
When one, like them, but mightier far than they, 

The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers, 
Rose : armies mingled in obscure array, 

Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred 
bowers 
Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued, 
Rests with those dead but unforgotten hours, 
Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral 
towers. 

xin. 
England yet sleeps : was she not called of old ? 

Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder 
Vesuvius wakens iEtna, and the cold 

Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder : 
O'er the lit waves every iEolian isle 
From Pithecusa to Pelorus 
. Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus : 
They cry, Be dim, ye lamps of heaven suspended o'er us. 



ODE TO LIBERTY. 223 

Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile 

And they dissolve ; but Spain's were links of steel, 
Till bit to dust, by virtue's keenest file. 
Twins of a single destiny ! appeal 
To the eternal years enthroned before us, 
In the dim West ; impress us from a seal, 
All ye have thought and done ! Time cannot dare 
conceal. 

xrv. 
Tomb of Arminius ! render up thy dead 

Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, 
His soul may stream over the tyrant's head ! 

Thy victory shall be his epitaph, 
Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine, 
King-deluded Germany, 
His dead spirit fives in thee. 
Why do we fear or hope ? thou art already free ! 
And thou, lost Paradise of this divine 

And glorious world ! thou flowery wilderness ! 
Thou island of eternity ! thou shrine 

Where desolation, clothed with loveliness, 
Worships the thing thou wert ! Italy, 
Gather thy blood into thy heart ; repress 
The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces. 



O that the free would stamp the impious name 

Of * * * * into the dust ; or write it there, 
So that this blot upon the page of fame 

Were as a serpent's path, which the fight air 
Erases, and the flat sands close behind ! 
Ye the oracle have heard : 
Lift the victory-flashing sword, 
And cut the snaky knots of this foid gordian word, 
Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind 

Into a mass, irrefragably firm, 
The axes and the rods which awe mankind ; 
The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm 
Of what makes fife foul, cankerous, and abhorred ; 



224 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term, 

To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. 

XVI. 

O that the wise from their bright minds would kindle 

Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, 
That the pale name of Priest might shrink and dwindle 

Into the hell from which it first was hurled, 
A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure 

Till human thoughts might kneel alone, 
Each before the judgment- throne 
Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown ! 
that the words which make the thoughts obscure 

From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew 
From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture, 
Were stript of their thin masks and various hue, 
And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own, 
Till in the nakedness of false and true 
They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due. 



He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever 
Can be between the cradle and the grave, 
Crowned him the King of Life. vain endeavour ! 

If on his own high will a willing slave, 
He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor. 
What if earth can clothe and feed 
Amplest millions at their need, 
And power in thought be as the tree within the seed ? 
Or what if art, an ardent intercessor, 

Diving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, 
Checks the great mother stooping to caress her, 
And cries, give me, thy child, dominion 
Over all height and depth ? if Life can breed 

New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan, 
Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for one. 

xvm. 
Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave 
Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star 



ODE TO LIBERTY. 225 

Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave, 

Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her ear 
Self-moving like cloud charioted hy flame ; 
Comes she not, and come ye not, 
Rulers of eternal thought, 
To judge with solemn truth life's ill-apportioned lot ? 
Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame 

Of what has been, the Hope of what will he ? 
0, Liberty ! if such could be thy name 

Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee : 
If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought 
By blood or tears, have not the wise and free 
Wept tears, and blood like tears % The solemn har- 
mony 

XIX. 

Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing 

To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn ; 
Then as a wild swan, when sublimely winging 

Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn, 
Sinks headlong through the aerial golden light 
On the heavy sounding plain, 
When the bolt has pierced its brain ; 
As summer clouds dissolve unburthened of their rain ; 
As a far taper fades with fading night ; 
As a brief insect dies with dying day, 
My song its pinions disarrayed of might, 
Drooped ; o'er it closed the echoes far away 
Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, 
As waves which lately paved his watery way 
Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous 
play. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



HYMN OF APOLLO. 



The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, 
Curtained with star-enwoven tapestries^ 

From the broad moonlight of the sky, 

Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, — 

Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn, 

Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. 

Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome, 
" I walk over the mountains and the waves, 
Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam ; 

My footsteps pave the clouds with fire ; the caves 
Are filled with my bright presence, and the air 
Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare. s< 

The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill 
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day ; 

All men who do or even imagine ill 
Fly me, and from the glory of my ray 

Good minds and open actions take new might, 

Until diminished by the reign of night. 

I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers, 
With their ethereal colours ; the Moon's globe 

And the pure stars in their eternal bowers 
Are cinctured with my power as with a robe ; 

Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine 

Are portions of one power, which is mine. 

I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven, 
Then with unwilling steps I wander down 

Into the clouds of the Atlantic even ; 

For grief that I depart they weep and frown : 

What look is more delightful than the smile 

With which I soothe them from the western isle ? 



HYMN OF PAX. 

I am the eye with which the Universe 
Beholds itself and knows itself divine • 

All harmony of instrument or verse, 
All prophecy, all medicine are mine, 

All light of art or nature ; — to my song 

Victory and praise in their own right belong. 



HYMN OF PAN. 



From the forests and highlands 

We come, we come ; 
From the river-girt islands, 

Where loud waves are dumb 
Listening to my sweet pipings. 
The wind in the reeds and the rushes, 

The bees on the bells of thyme, 
The birds on the myrtle bushes, 
The cicale above in the lime, 
And the lizards below in the grass, 
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus* was, 
Listening to my sweet pipings. 

Liquid Peneus was flowing," 
And all dark Tempe lay 
In Pe lion's shadow, outgrowing 
The light of the dying day, 

Speeded with my sweet pipings. 
The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, 

And the nymphs of the woods and waves, 
To the edge of the moist river-lawns, 
And the brink of the dewy caves, 

* This and the former poem were written at the request of a 
friend, to be inserted in a drama on the subject of Midas. 
Apollo and Pan contended before Tmolus for the prize in music. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

And all that did then attend and follow, 
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo, 
With envy of my sweet pipings. 

I sang of the dancing stars, 

I sang of the daedal Earth, 
And of Heaven — and the giant wars, 
And Love, and Death, and Birth, — 
And then I changed my pipings, — 
Singing how down the vale of Menalus 

I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed : 
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus ! 

It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed : 
All wept, as I think both ye now would, 
If envy or rage had not frozen your blood, 
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings* 



ARETHUSA.* 

Arethusa arose 

From her couch of snows 
In the Acroceraunian mountains, — 

From cloud and from crag 

With many a jag, 
Shepherding her bright fountains. 

She leapt down the rocks 

With her rainbow locks 
Streaming among the streams ; — 

* This poem, together with six others in this volume, have 
been set to characteristic and very beautiful music by Henry 
Hugh Pearson, Esq. Five among them are published by Alfred 
Novello, Dean-street, Soho, namely : Arethusa, Spirit of Night, 
Song of Proserpine, Lines on a faded Violet, Song of Beatrice 
Cenci. The remaining two have only appeared in Germany, 
namely : Lines to an Indian Air, and " Bough wind, that 
moanest loud," a Dirge. 



ARETHUSA, 

Her steps paved with green 

The downward ravine 
Which slopes to the western gleams : 

And gliding and springing, 

She went, ever singing, 
In murmurs as soft as sleep ; 

The earth seemed to love her, 

And Heaven smiled above her, 
As she lingered towards the deep. 

Then Alpheus bold, 

On his glacier cold, 
With his trident the mountains strook ; 

And opened a chasm 

In the rocks ; — with the spasm 
All Erymanthus shook. 

And the black south wind 

It concealed behind 
The urns of the silent snow, 

And earthquake and thunder 

Did rend in sunder 
The bars of the springs below : 

The beard and the hair 

Of the river God were 
Seen through the torrent's sweep, 

As he followed the light 

Of the fleet nymph's flight 
To the brink of the Dorian deep. 

" Oh, save me ! Oh, guide me ! 
And bid the deep hide me, 

For he grasps me now by the hair ! " 
The loud Ocean heard, 
To its blue depth stirred, 

And divided at her prayer ; 
And under the water 
The Earth's white daughter 

Fled like a sunny beam ; 

Behind her descended 
Her billows, unblended 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

With the brackish Dorian stream : 

Like a gloomy stain 

On the emerald main 
Alpheus rushed behind, — 

As an eagle pursuing 

A dove to its ruin 
Down the streams of the cloudy wind. 

Under the bowers 
Where the Ocean Powers 

Sit on their pearled thrones : 

Through the coral woods 
Of the weltering floods, 

Over heaps of unvalued stones; 
Through the dim beams 
Which amid the streams 

Weave a net- work of coloured light ; 
And under the caves, 
Where the shadowy waves 

Are as green as the forest's night : — 
Outspeeding the shark, 
And the sword-fish dark, 

Under the ocean foam, 

And up through the rifts 
Of the mountain clifts 

They passed to their Dorian home. 

And now from their fountains 

In Enna's mountains, 
Down one vale where the morning basks, 

Like friends once parted 

Grown single-hearted, 
They ply their watery tasks. 

At sunrise they leap 

From their cradles steep 
In the cave of the shelving hill ; 

At noon-tide they flow 

Through the woods below 
And the meadows of Asphodel ; 



THE QUESTION. 

And at night they sleep 

In the rocking deep 
Beneath the Ortygian shore ; — 

Like spirits that he 

In the azure sky 
When they love but live no more. 



THE QUESTION, 



I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way, 
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, 

And gentle odours led my steps astray, 
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring 

Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay 
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling 

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, 

But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream, 

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, 

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, 
The constellated flower that never sets ; 

Faint oxlips ; tender blue bells, at whose birth 
The sod scarce heaved ; and that tall flower that wets 
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, 
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears. 

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, 

Green cow-bind and the moonlight-coloured May, 

And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine 
Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day ; 

And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, 

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray ; 

And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, 

Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. 



232 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

And nearer to the river's trembling edge 

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with 
white, 

And starry river buds among the sedge, 
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, 

Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge 

With moonlight beams of their own watery light ; 

And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green 

As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen. 

Methought that of these visionary flowers 
I made a nosegay, bound in such a way 

That the same hues, which in their natural bowers 
Were mingled or opposed, the like array 

Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours 
Within my hand, — and then, elate and gay, 

I hastened to the spot whence I had come, 

That I might there present it ! — Oh ! to whom ? 



SONG OF PROSERPINE, 

WHILE GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA. 

Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth, 
Thou from whose immortal bosom, 

Gods, and men, and beasts have birth, 
Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom, 

Breathe thine influence most divine 

On thine own child, Proserpine. 

If with mists of evening dew 

Thou dost nourish these young flowers 
Till they grow, in scent and hue, 

Fairest children of the hours, 
Breathe thine influence most divine 
On thine own child, Proserpine. 



THE TWO SPIRITS. 

AN ALLEGORY. 
FIRST SPIRIT. 

thou, who plumed with strong desire 
Wouldst float above the earth, beware ! 

A shadow tracks thy flight of fire — 

Night is coming ! 
Bright are the regions of the air, 

And among the winds and beams 
It were delight to wander there — 

Night- is coming ! 

SECOND SPIRIT. 

The deathless stars are bright above : 

If I would cross the shade at night, 

Within my heart is the lamp of love, 

And that is day ! 
And the moon will smile with gentle light 

On my golden plumes where'er they move ; 
The meteors will linger round my flight, 
And make night day. 

FIRST SPIRIT. 

But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken 
Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain ; 
See the bounds of the air are shaken — 

Night is coming ! 
The red swift clouds of the hurricane 
Yon declining sun have overtaken, 
The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain — 
Night is coming ! 

SECOND SPIRIT. 

1 see the light, and I hear the sound ; 

I '11 sail on the flood of the tempest dark, 



234 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

With the calm within and the light around 
Which makes night day : 

And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark, 
Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound, 

My moonlight flight thou then may'st mark 
On high, far away. 



Some say there is a precipice 

Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin 
O'er piles of snow and chasms of ice 
'Mid Alpine mountains ; 
And that the languid storm, pursuing 

That winged shape, for ever flies 
Round those hoar branches, aye renewing 

Its aery fountains. 
Some say when nights are dry and clear, 

And the death-dews sleep on the morass, 
Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller, 

Which make night day : 
And a silver shape like his early love doth pass 

Upborne by her wild and glittering hair, 
And when he awakes on the fragrant grass, 
He finds night day. 



THE WANING MOON. 

And like a dying lady, lean and pale, 
Who totters forth, wrapt in a gauzy veil, 
Out of her chamber, led by the insane 
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain, 
The moon arose upon the murky earth, 
A white and shapeless mass. 



LETTER 

TO MARIA GISBORNE.' 

Leghorn, July 1, 1820. 
The spider spreads her webs, whether she be 
In poet's tower, cellar, or barn, or tree ; 
The silkworm in the dark-green mulberry leaves 
His winding-sheet and cradle ever weaves ! 
So I, a thing whom moralists call worm, 
Sit spinning still round this decaying form, 
From the fine threads of rare and subtle thought — 
No net of words in garish colours wrought, 
To catch the idle buzzers of the day — 
But a soft cell, where, when that fades away, 
Memory may clothe in wings my living name 
And feed it with the asphodels of fame, 
Which in those hearts which most remember me 
Grow, making love an immortality. 

Whoever should behold me now, I wist, 
Would think I were a mighty mechanist, 
Bent with subhme Archimedean art 
To breathe a soul into the iron heart 
Of some machine portentous, or strange gin, 
Which by the force of figured spells might win 
Its way over the sea, and sport therein ; 
For round the walls are hung dread engines, such 
As Vulcan never wrought for Jove to clutch 
Txion or the Titan : — or the quick 
Wit of that man of God, St. Dominic, 
To convince Atheist, Turk, or Heretic ; 
Or those in philosophic councils met, 
Who thought to pay some interest for the debt 
They owed to Jesus Christ for their salvation, 
By giving a faint foretaste of damnation 



236 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

To Shakspeare, Sidney, Spenser, and the rest 

Who made our land an island of the blest, 

When lamp-like Spain, who now relumes her fire 

On Freedom's hearth, grew dim with Empire : — 

With thumb-screAvs, wheels, with tooth and spike and j ag, 

With fishes found under the utmost crag 

Of Cornwall, and the storm-encompassed isles, 

Where to the sky the rude sea seldom smiles 

Unless in treacherous wrath, as on the morn 

When the exulting elements in scorn 

Satiated with destroyed destruction, lay 

Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey, 

As panthers sleep : — and other strange and dread 

Magical forms the brick-floor overspread — 

Proteus transformed to metal did not make 

More figures, or more strange ; nor did he take 

Such shapes of unintelligible brass, 

Or heap himself in such a horrid mass 

Of tin and iron not to be understood, 

And forms of unimaginable wood, 

To puzzle Tubal Cain and all his brood : 

Great screws, and cones, and wheels, and grooved blocks, 

The elements of what will stand the shocks 

Of wave and wind and time. — Upon the table 

More knacks and quips there be than I am able 

To cataloguise in this verse of mine : — 

A pretty bowl of wood — not full of wine, 

But quicksilver ; that dew which the gnomes drink 

When at their subterranean toil they swink, 

Pledging the demons of the earthquake, who 

Reply to them in lava- cry, halloo ! 

And call out to the cities o'er their head, — 

Roofs, towns, and shrines, — the dying and the dead 

Crash through the chinks of earth — and then all quaff 

Another rouse, and hold their sides and laugh. 

This quicksilver no gnome has drunk — within 

The walnut-bowl it lies, veined and thin, 

In colour like the wake of light that stains 

The Tuscan deep, when from the moist moon rains 



LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 

The inmost shower of its white fire — the breeze 

Is still — blue heaven smiles over the pale seas. 

And in this bowl of quicksilver — for I 

Yield to the impulse of an infancy 

Outlasting manhood — I have made to float 

A rude idealism of a paper boat — 

A hollow screw with cogs — Henry will know 

The tiling I mean, and laugh at me, — if so 

He fears not I should do more mischief. — Next 

Lie bills and calculations much perplext, 

With steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint 

Traced over them in blue and yellow paint. 

Then comes a range of mathematical 

Instruments, for plans nautical and statical, 

A heap of rosin, a green broken glass 

With ink in it ; — a china cup that was 

What it will never be again, I think, 

A thing from which sweet lips were wont to drink 

The liquor doctors rail at — and which I 

Will quaff in spite of them — and when we die 

We'll toss up who died first of drinking tea, 

And cry out, — heads or tails ? where'er we be. 

Near that a dusty paint-box, some old books, 

A half burnt match, an ivory block, three books, 

Where conic sections, spherics, logarithms, 

To great Laplace, from Saunderscn and Sims, 

Lie neaped in their harmonious disarray 

Of figures, — disentangle them who may. 

Baron de Tott's Memoirs beside them he, 

And some odd volumes of old chemistry. 

Near them a most inexplicable thing, 

With least in the middle — I 'm conjecturing 

How to make Henry understand ; — but — no, 

I '11 leave, as Spenser says, with many mo, 

This secret in the pregnant womb of time, 

Too vast a matter for so weak a rhyme. 

And here like some weird Archimage sit I, 
Plotting dark spells, and devihsh enginery, 



238 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The self-impelling steam- wheels of the mind 

Which pump up oaths from clergymen, and grind 

The gentle spirit of our meek reviews 

Into a powdery foam of salt abuse, 

Ruffling the ocean of their self-content ; — 

I sit — and smile or sigh as is my bent, 

But not for them — Libeccio rushes round 

With an inconstant and an idle sound, 

I heed him more than them — the thunder-smoke 

Is gathering on the mountains, like a cloak 

Folded athwart their shoulders broad and bare ; 

The ripe corn under the undulating air 

Undulates like an ocean ; — and the vines 

Are trembling wide in all their trellised lines ; — 

The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill 

The empty pauses of the blast ; — the hill 

Looks hoary through the white electric rain, 

And from the glens beyond, in sullen strain 

The interrupted thunder howls ; above 

One chasm of heaven smiles, like the eye of love 

On the unquiet world ; — while such things are, 

How could one worth your friendship heed the war 

Of worms ? The shriek of the world's carrion jays, 

Their censure, or their wonder, or their praise ? 

You are not here ! The quaint witch Memory sees 
In vacant chairs your absent images, 
And points where once you sat, and now should be, 
But are not. — I demand if ever we 
Shall meet as then we met ; — and she replies, 
Veiling in awe her second-sighted eyes, 
" I know the past alone — but summon home 
My sister Hope, she speaks of all to come." 
But I, an old diviner, who know well 
Every false verse of that sweet oracle, 
Turned to the sad enchantress once again, 
And sought a respite from my gentle pain, 
In acting every passage o'er and o'er 
Of our communion. — How on the sea shore 



LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. S 

We watched the ocean and the sky together, 

Under the roof of blue Italian weather ; 

How I ran home through last year's thunder-storm, 

And felt the transverse lightning linger warm 

Upon my cheek : and how we often made 

Treats for each other, where goodwill outweighed 

The frugal luxury of our country cheer, 

As it well might, were it less firm and clear 

Than ours must ever be ; — and how we spun 

A shroud of talk to hide us from the sun 

Of this familiar life, which seems to be 

But is not, — or is but quaint mockery 

Of all we would believe ; or sadly blame 

The jarring and inexplicable frame 

Of this wrong world : — and then anatomize 

The purposes and thoughts of men whose eyes 

Were closed in distant years ; — or widely guess 

The issue of the earth's great business, 

When we shall be as we no longer are ; 

Like babbling gossips safe, who hear the war 

Of winds, and sigh, but tremble not ; or how 

You listened to some interrupted flow 

Of visionary rhyme ; — in joy and pain 

Struck from the inmost fountains of my brain, 

With little skill perhaps ; — or how we sought 

Those deepest wells of passion or of thought 

Wrought by wise poets in the waste of years, 

Staining the sacred waters with our tears ; 

Quenching a thirst ever to be renewed ! 

Or how I, wisest lady ! then indued 

The language of a land which now is free, 

And winged with thoughts of truth and majesty, 

Flits round the tyrant's sceptre like a cloud, 

And bursts the peopled prisons, and cries aloud, 

" My name is Legion ! " that majestic tongue, 

Which Calderon over the desert flung 

Of ages and of nations ; and which found 

An echo in our hearts, and with the sound 

Startled oblivion ; — thou wert then to me 



240 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

As is a nurse — when inarticulately 

A child would talk as its grown parents do. 

If living winds the rapid clouds pursue, 

If hawks chase doves through the aerial way, 

Huntsmen the innocent deer, and heasts their prey, 

Why should not we rouse with the spirit's blast 

Out of the forest of the pathless past 

These recollected pleasures ? 

You are now 
In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow 
At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore 
Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. 
Yet in its depth what treasures ! You will see 
Your old friend Godwin, greater none than he ; 
Though fallen on evil times, yet will he stand, 
Among the spirits of our age and land, 
Before the dread tribunal of To-come 
The foremost, whilst rebuke stands pale and dumb. 
You will see Coleridge ; he who sits obscure 
In the exceeding lustre and the pure 
Intense irradiation of a mind, 
Which, with its own internal lustre blind, 
Flags wearily through darkness and despair — 
A cloud-encircled meteor of the air, 
A hooded eagle among blinking owls. 
You will see Hunt ; one of those happy souls 
Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom 
This world would smell like what it is — a tomb ; 
Who is, what others seem : — his room no doubt 
Is still adorned by many a cast from Shout, 
With graceful flowers, tastefully placed about ; 
And coronals of bay from ribbons hung, 
And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung, 
The gifts of the most learned among some dozens 
Of female friends, sisters-in-law and cousins. 
And there is he with his eternal puns, 
Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns 
Thundering for money at a poet's door ; 



LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 24 

Alas ! it is no use to say, " I 'm poor !*' 

Or oft in graver mood, when he will look 

Things wiser than were ever said in book, 

Except in Shakspeare's wisest tenderness. 

You will see H — , and I cannot express 

His virtues, though I know that they are great, 

Because he locks, then barricades, the gate 

Within which they inhabit ; — of his wit, 

And wisdom, you '11 cry out when you are bit. 

He is a pearl within an oyster-shell, 

One of the richest of the deep. And there 

Is English P — with liis mountain Fair 

Turned into a Flamingo, — that shy bird 

That gleams i' the Indian air. Have you not heard 

When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo, 

His best friends hear no more of him ? but you 

Will see him, and will like him too, I hope, 

With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope 

Matched with his camelopard his fine wit 

Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it ; 

A strain too learned for a shallow age, 

Too wise for selfish bigots ; — let his page, 

Which charms the chosen spirits of the age, 

Fold itself up for a serener chme 

Of years to come, and find its recompense 

In that just expectation. Wit and sense, 

Virtue and human knowledge, all that might 

Make this dull world a business of delight, 

Are all combined in Horace Smith. — And these, 

With some exceptions, which I need not teaze 

Your patience by descanting on, are all 

You and I know in London. 

I recall 
My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night : 
As water does a sponge, so the moonlight 
Fills the void, hollow, universal air. 
What see you ? — Unpavilioned heaven is fair, 
Whether the moon, into her chamber gone, 



242 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan 

Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep ; 

Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep, 

Piloted by the many-wandering blast, 

And the rare stars rush through them, dim and fast. 

All this is beautiful in every land. 

But what see you beside ? A shabby stand 

Of hackney-coaches — a brick house or wall 

Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl 

Of our unhappy politics ; — or worse — 

A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse 

Mixed with the watchman's, partner of her trade, 

You must accept in place of serenade — 

Or yellow-haired Pollonia murmuring 

To Henry, some unutterable thing. 

I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit 
Built round dark caverns, even to the root 
Of the living stems who feed them ; in whose bowers 
There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers ; 
Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn 
Trembles not in the slumbering air, and borne 
In circles quaint, and ever-changing dance, 
Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance 
Pale in the open moonshine ; but each one 
Under the dark trees seems a little sun, 
A meteor tamed ; a fixed star gone astray 
From the silver regions of the Milky- way. 
Afar the Contadino's song is heard, 
Rude, but made sweet by distance ; — and a bird 
Which cannot be a nightingale, and yet 
I know none else that sings so sweet as it 
At this late hour ; — and then all is still : — 
Now Italy or London, winch you will ! 

Next winter you must pass with me ; I '11 have 
My house by that time turned into a grave 
Of dead despondence and low-thoughted care, 
And all the dreams which our tormentors are. 



LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 243 

that Hunt and were there, 

With everything belonging to them fair ! — 
We will have books ; Spanish, Italian, Greek, 
And ask one week to make another week 

As like his father, as I 'm unlike mine. 

Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine, 

Yet let 's be merry ; we '11 have tea and toast ; 

Custards for supper, and an endless host 

Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies, 

And other such lady-like luxuries, — 

Feasting on which we wall philosophise. 

And we '11 have fires out of the Grand Duke's w r ood, 

To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood. 

And then we '11 talk ; — what shall w r e talk about ? 

Oh ! there are themes enough for many a bout 

Of thought-entangled descant ; as to nerves — 

With cones and parallelograms and curves 

1 've sworn to strangle them if once they dare 
To bother me, — when you are with me there. 
And they shall never more sip laudanum 
From Helicon or Himeros ;*■ — well, come, 
And in spite of * * * and of the devil, 

Will make our friendly philosophic revel 
Outlast the leafless time ; — till buds and flow r ers 
Warn the obscure inevitable hours 
Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew : — 
" To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new." 

* "lfx.i%os, from which the river Himera was named, is, with 
some slight shade of difference, a synonyme of Love. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



ODE TO NAPLES * 



EPODE I. a,. 

I stood within the city disinterred ; f 

And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls 
Of spirits passing through the streets ; and heard 
The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals 
Thrill through those roofless halls ; 
The oracular thunder penetrating shook 

The listening soul in my suspended blood ; 
I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke — 

I felt, but heard not : — through white columns 
glowed 
The isle-sustaining Ocean flood, 
A plane of light between two heavens of azure : 
Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre 
Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure 
Were to spare Death, had never made erasure ; 
But every living lineament was clear 
As in the sculptor's thought ; and there 
The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine, 

Like whiter leaves o'ergrown by moulded, snow, 
Seemed only not to move and grow 
Because the crystal silence of the air 
Weighed on their life ; even as the Power divine, 
Which then lulled aU things, brooded upon mine. 

* The Author has connected many recollections of his visit 
to Pompeii and Baiae with the enthusiasm excited hy the intel- 
ligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at 
Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive 
imagery to the introductory Epodes, which depicture the scenes 
and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with 
the scene of this animating event.— Author's Note. 

t Pompeii- 



ODE TO NAPLES. 245 

EPODE II. a. 

Then gentle winds arose, 

With many a mingled close 
Of wild iEolian sound and mountain odour keen ; 

And where the Baian ocean 

Welters with air-like motion, 
Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, 
Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves, 
Even as the ever stormless atmosphere 

Floats o'er the Elysian realm, 
It bore me ; (like an Angel o'er the waves 
Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air^ 

No storm can overwhelm ;) 

I sailed where ever flows 

Under the calm Serene 

A spirit of deep emotion, 

From the unknown graves 

Of the dead kings of Melody *. 
Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm 
The horizontal eether ; heaven stript bare 
Its depths over Elysium, where the prow 
Made the invisible water white as snow ; 
From that Typhsean mount, Inarim£, 
There streamed a sunlit vapour, like the standard 

Of some ethereal host ; 

Whilst from all the coast, 
Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered 
Over the oracular woods and divine sea 
Prophesyings which grew articulate — 
They seize me — I must speak them ; — be they fate ! 

STROPHE «.. 1. 

Naples ! thou Heart of men, which ever pantest 

Naked, beneath the lidless eye of heaven ! 
Elysian City, which to calm enchantest 

The mutinous air and sea ! they round thee, even 

As sleep round Love, are driven ! 

Metropolis of a ruined Paradise 

* Homer and Virgil, 



24G MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained ! 
Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice, 

Which armed Victory offers up unstained. 
To Love, the flower-enchained ! 
Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, 
Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free, 
If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail. 
Hail, hail, all hail ! 

STROPHE jS. 2. 

Thou youngest giant birth, 
Which from the groaning earth 

Leap'st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale ! 
Last of the Intercessors 
Who 'gainst the Crowned Transgressors 

Pleadest before God's love ! Arrayed in Wisdom's mail, 
Wave thy lightning lance in mirth j 
Nor let thy high heart fail, [sors, 

Though from their hundred gates the leagued Oppres- 

With hurried legions move ! Hail, hail, all hail ! 

ANTISTROPHE «,. 

What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme 

Freedom and thee ? thy shield is as a mirror 
To make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam 

To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer ; 
A new Actseon's error 
Shall theirs have been — devoured by their own hounds ! 

Be thou like the imperial Basilisk, 
Killing thy foe with unapparent, wounds ! 

Gaze on oppression, till, at that dread risk 

Aghast, she pass from the Earth's disk ; 
Fear not, but gaze — for freemen mightier grow, 
And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe. 

If Hope, and Truth, and Justice may avail, 

Thou shalt be great. — All hail ! 

ANTISTROPHE /3 . 2. 

From Freedom's form divine, 
From Nature's inmost shrine, 



ODE TO NAPLES. 247 

Strip every impious gawd, rend Error veil by veil : 

O'er Ruin desolate, 

O'er Falsehood's fallen state, 
Sit thou sublime, unawed ; be the Destroyer pale ! 

And equal laws be thine, 

And winged words let sail, 
Freighted with truth even from the throne of God : 
That wealth, surviving fate, be thine. — All hail ! 

ANTISTROPHE cc. V- 

Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling psean 

From land to land re-echoed solemnly, 

Till silence became music ? From the iEsean * 

To the cold Alps, eternal Italy 

Starts to hear thine ! The Sea 

Which paves the desert streets of Venice, laughs 

In light and music ; widowed Genoa wan, 
By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs, 
Murmuring, where is Doria ? fair Milan, 
Within whose veins long ran 
The viper's f palsying venom, lifts her heel 
To bruise his head. The signal and the seal 
(If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail) 
Art Thou of all these hopes. — hail ! 

ANTISTROPHE. /S. y. 

Florence ! beneath the sun, 

Of cities fairest one, 
Blushes within her bower for Freedom's expectation : 

From eyes of quenchless hope 

Rome tears the priestly cope, . 
As ruling once by power, so now by admiration, 

An athlete stript to run 

From a remoter station 
For the high prize lost on Philippi's shore : — 
As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail, 
So now may Fraud and Wrong ! — O hail ! 

* JEaea, the Island of Circe. t The viper was the armo- 

rial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan. 



243 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

EPODE I. g. 

Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms 

Arrayed against the ever-living Gods ? 
The crash and darkness of a thousand storms 
Bursting their inaccessible abodes 

Of crags and thunder clouds \ 
See ye the banners blazoned to the day, 

Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride ? 
Dissonant threats kill Silence far away, 

The Serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide 
With iron light is dyed, 
The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions 

Like Chaos o'er creation, uncreating ; 
An hundred tribes nourished on strange religions 
And lawless slaveries, — down the aerial regions 
Of the white Alps, desolating, 
Famished wolves that bide no waiting, 
Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory, 
Trampling our columned cities into dust, 

Their dull and savage lust 
On Beauty's corse to sickness satiating — 
They come ! The fields they tread look black and 

hoary 
With fire — from their red feet the streams run gory ! 

EPODE II. /3. 

Great Spirit, deepest Love ! 

Which rulest and dost move 
All things which live and are, within the Italian shore : 

Who spreadest heaven around it, 

Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it ; 
Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor, 

Spirit of beauty ! at whose soft command 
The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison ! 

From the Earth's bosom drill ; 
bid those beams be each a blinding brand 
Of lightning ! bid those showers be dews of poison ! 

Bid the Earth's plenty kill ! 

Bid thy bright Heaven above 



Whilst light and darkness bound it, 
Be their tomb who planned 
To make it ours and thine ! 
Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fill 
And raise thy sons, as o ? er the prone horizon 
Thy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire — 
Be man's high hope and unextinct desire 
The instrument to work thy will divine ! 
Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from leopards, 
And frowns and fears from Thee, 
Would not more swiftly flee, 
Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds. — 
Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine 
Thou yieldest or withholdest, Oh let be 
This City of thy worship, ever free ! 



DEATH. 



Death is here, and death is there, 
Death is busy everywhere, 
All around, within, beneath, 
Above is death — and we are death. 

Death has set his mark and seal 
On all we are and all we feel, 
On all we know and all we fear, 
* * * * * 

First our pleasures die — and then 

Our hopes, and then our fears — and when 

These are dead, the debt is due, 

Dust claims dust — and we die too. 

All things that we love and cherish, 
Like ourselves, must fade and perish ; 
Such is our rude mortal lot — 
Love itself would, did they not. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



SUMMER AND WINTER. 

It was a bright and cheerful afternoon, 
Towards the end of the sunny month of June, 
When the north wind congregates in crowds 
The floating mountains of the silver clouds 
From the horizon — and the stainless sky 
Opens beyond them like eternity. 
All things rejoiced beneath the sun, the weeds, 
The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds ; 
The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze, 
And the firm foliage of the larger trees. 

It was a winter such as when birds die 
In the deep forests ; and the fishes he 
Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes 
Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes 
A wrinkled clod, as hard as brick ; and when, 
Among their children, comfortable men 
Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold : 
Alas ! then for the homeless beggar old I 



A DIRGE. 



Rough wind, that moanest loud 

Grief too sad for song ; 
Wild wind, when sullen cloud, 
Knells all the night long ; 
Sad storm, whose tears are vain, 
Bare woods, whose branches stain, 
Deep caves and dreary main, 

Wail, for the world's wrong ! 



THE WORLD'S WANDERERS, 



THE TOWER OF FAMINE.* 

Amid the desolation of a city, 

Which was the cradle, and is now the grave, 

Of an extinguished people ; so that pity 

Weeps o'er the shipwrecks of oblivion's wave, 

There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built 

Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave _' 

For bread, and gold, and blood : pain, linked to guilt, 

Agitates the light flame of their hours, 

Until its vital oil is spent or spilt : 

There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers 

And sacred domes ; each marble-ribbed roof, 

The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers 

Of solitary wealth ! the tempest-proof 

Pavilions of the dark Italian air 

Are by its presence dimmed — they stand aloof, 

And are withdrawn — so that the world is bare, 

As if a spectre, wrapt in shapeless terror, 

Amid a company of ladies fair 

Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror 

Of all their beauty, and their hair and hue, 

The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error, 

Should be absorbed, till they to marble grew. 



THE WORLD'S WANDERERS. 

Tell me, thou star, whose wings of light 
Speed thee in thy fiery flight, 
In what cavern of the night 

Will thy pinions close now % 

* At Pisa there still exists the prison of Ugolino, which goes 
by the name of "La Torre della Fame:" in the adjoining 
building the galley-slaves are confined. It is situated near the 
Ponte al Mare on the Arno. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Tell me, moon, thou pale and grey 
Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way, 
In what depth of night or day 
Seekest thou repose now ? 

"Weary wind, who wanderest 
Like the world's rejected guest, 
Hast thou still some secret nest 
On the tree or billow ? 



AUTUMN : 



The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, 
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are 
dying, 

And the year 
On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, 
Is lying. 
Come, months, come away, 
From November to May, 
In your saddest array ; 
Follow the bier 
Of the dead cold year, 
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. 

The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, 
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling 

For the year ; 
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone 
To his dwelling ; 

Come, months, come away ; 

Put on white, black, and grey, 

Let your light sisters play — 

Ye, follow the bier 

Of the dead cold year, 
And make her grave green with tear on tear. 



TO THE MOON. 



LIBERTY. 



The fiery mountains answer each other ; 
Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone ; 
The tempestuous oceans awake one another, 
And the ice-rocks are shaken round winter's throne, 
When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown. 

From a single cloud the lightning flashes, 
Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around ; 
Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes, 
An hundred are shuddering and tottering ; the sound 
Is bellowing underground. 

But keener thy gaze than the lightning's glare, 
And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp ; 
Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean ; thy stare 
Makes blind the volcanoes ; the sun's bright lamp 
To thine is a fen-fire damp. 

From billow and mountain and exhalation 
The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast ; 
From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation, 
From city to hamlet, thy dawning is cast, — 
And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night 
In the van of the morning fight. 



TO THE MOON. 



Art thou pale for weariness 
Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, 

Wandering companionless 
Among the stars that have a different birth, — 
And ever-changing, like a joyless eye 
That finds no object worth its constancy ? 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



AN ALLEGORY. 



A portal as of shadowy adamant 

Stands yawning on the highway of the life 
Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt ; 

Around it rages an unceasing strife 
Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt 
The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high 
Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky. 

And many passed it by with careless tread, 
Not knowing that a shadowy [ ] 

Tracks every traveller even to where the dead 
Wait peacefully for their companion new ; 

But others, by more curious humour led, 
Pause to examine, — these are very few, 

And they learn little there, except to know 

That shadows follow them where'er they go. 



LINES TO A REVIEWER. 

Alas ! good friend, what profit can you see 
In hating such a hateless thing as me ? 
There is no sport in hate where all the rage 
Is on one side. In vain would you assuage 
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, 
In which not even contempt lurks, to beguile 
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate. 
Oh conquer what you cannot satiate ! 
For to your passion I am far more coy 
Than ever yet was coldest maid or bo} 
In winter noon. Of your antipathy 
If I am the Narcissus, you are free 
To pine into a sound with hating me. 



SONNET. 

Ye hasten to the dead ! What seek ye there, 

Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes 

Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear ? 

O thou quick Heart, which pantest to possess 

All that anticipation feigneth fair ! 

Thou vainly curious Mind which wouldest guess 

Whence thou didst come, and whither thou mayest go, 

And that which never yet was known wouldst know — 

Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press 

With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path, 

Seeking alike from happiness and Avoe 

A refuge in the cavern of grey death ? 

heart, and mind, and thoughts ! What thing do you 

Hope to inherit in the grave below % 



TO NIGHT. 



Swiftly walk over the western wave, 

Spirit of Night ! 
Out of the misty eastern cave, 
Where all the long and lone daylight, 
Thou wo vest dreams of joy and fear, 
Which make thee terrible and dear, — 

Swift be thy flight ! 

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, 

Star-inwrought ! 
Blind with thine hair the eyes of day, 
Kiss her until she be wearied out, 
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, 
Touching all with thine opiate wand — 

Come, long-sought ! 



256 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

When I arose and saw the dawn, 

I sighed for thee ; 
When light rode high, and the dew was gone, 
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, 
And the weary Day turned to his rest, 
Lingering like an unloved guest, 

I sighed for thee. 

Thy brother Death came, and cried, 

Wouldst thou me ? 
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, 

Murmured like a noon tide bee, 
Shall I nestle near thy side ? 
Wouldst thou me? — And I replied, 

No, not thee ! 

Death will come when thou art dead, 

Soon, too soon — 
Sleep will come when thou art fled ; 
Of neither would I ask the boon 
I ask of thee, beloved Night — 
Swift be thine approaching flight, 

Come soon, soon ! 



TO E*** V***. 



Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me 

Sweet-basil and mignionette ? 
Embleming love and health, which never yet 
In the same wreath might be. 

Alas, and they are wet ! 
Is it with thy kisses or thy tears ? 

For never rain or dew 

Such fragrance drew 
From plant or flower — the very doubt endears 

My sadness ever new, 
The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee. 



FROM THE ARABIC. 

AN IMITATION. 

My faint spirit was sitting in the light 

Of thy looks, ruy love ; 
It panted for thee like the hind at noon 

For the brooks, my love. 
Thy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight, 

Bore thee far from me ; 
My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon, 

Did companion thee. 

Ah ! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed, 

Or the death they bear, 
The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove 

With the wings of care ; 
In the battle, in the darkness, in the need, 

Shall mine chng to thee, 
Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love, 

It may bring to thee. 



TIME. 

Unfathomable Sea ! whose waves are years, 
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe 

Are brackish with the salt of human tears ! 

Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow 

Claspest the limits of mortality ! 

And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, 

Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore ; 

Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, 
Who shall put forth on thee, 
Unfathomable Sea? 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



MUTABILITY. 

The flower that smiles to-day 

To-morrow dies ; 
All that we wish to stay, 

Tempts and then flies ; 
What is this world's delight ? 
Lightning that mocks the night, 
Brief even as bright. 

Virtue, how frail it is ! 

Friendship too rare ! 
Love, how it sells poor bliss 

For proud despair ! 
But we, though soon they fall, 
Survive then* joy and all 
Which ours we call. 

Whilst skies are blue and bright, 
Whilst flowers are gay, 

Whilst eyes that change ere night 
Make glad the day ; 

Whilst yet the calm hours creep, 

Dream thou — and from thy sleep 

Then wake to weep. 



TO . 

Music, when soft voices die, 
Vibrates in the memory — 
Odours, when sweet violets sicken, 
Live within the sense they quicken. 

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, 
Are heaped for the beloved's bed ; 
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, 
Love itself shall slumber on. 



THE FUGITIVES. 



The waters are flashing, 
The white hail is dashing, 
The lightnings are glancing, 
The hoar-spray is dancing — 
Away ! 

The whirlwind is rolling, 
The thunder is tolling, 
The forest is swinging, 
The minster bells ringing — 
Come away ! 

The Earth is like Ocean, 
Wreck-strewn and in motion : 
Bird, beast, man, and worm, 
Have crept out of the storm — 
Come away ! 

n. 
" Our boat has one sail, 
And the helmsman is pale ; — ■ 
A bold pilot I trow, 
Who should follow us now," — 
Shouted He — 

And she cried : " Ply the oar ; 
Put off gaily from shore ! " — 
As she spoke, bolts of death 
Mixed with hail, specked their path 
O'er the sea. 

And from isle, tower, and rock, 
The blue beacon-cloud broke, 
Though dumb in the blast, 
The red cannon flashed fast 
From the lee. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



" And fear'st thou, and fear'st thou ? 
And see'st thou, and hear'st thou ? 
And drive we not free 
O'er the terrible sea, 
I and thou ? " 

One boat-cloak did cover 
The loved and the lover — 
Their blood beats one measure, 
They murmur proud pleasure 
Soft and low ; — 

While around the lashed Ocean, 
Like mountains in motion, 
Is withdrawn and uplifted, 
Sunk, shattered, and shifted, 
To and fro. 



In the court of the fortress 
Beside the pale portress, 
Like a blood-hound well beaten 
The bridegroom stands, eaten 
By shame ; 

On the topmost watch-turret, 
As a death-boding spirit, 
Stands the grey tyrant father, 
To his voice the mad weather 
Seems tame ; 

And with curses as wild 
As e'er cling to child, 
He devotes to the blast 
The best, loveliest, and last, 
Of his name ! 



TO 

Mine eyes were dim with tears unshed ; 

Yes, I was firm — thus wert not thou ; — 
My baffled looks did fear yet dread 

To meet thy looks — I could not know 
How anxiously they sought to shine 
With soothing pity upon mine. 

To sit and curb the soul's mute rage 
Which preys upon itself alone ; 

To curse the life which is the cage 
Of fettered grief that dares not groan, 

Hiding from many a careless eye 

The scorned load of agony. 

Whilst thou alone, then not regarded, 
The [ ] thou alone should be, 

To spend years thus, and be rewarded, 
As thou, sweet love, requited me 

When none were near — Oh ! I did wake 

From torture for that moment's sake. 

Upon my heart thy accents sweet 
Of peace and pity fell like dew 

On flowers half dead ; — thy lips did meet 
Mine tremblingly ; thy dark eyes threw 

Their soft persuasion on my brain, 

Charming away its dream of pain. 

We are not happy, sweet ! our state 
Is strange and full of doubt and fear ; 

More need of words that ills abate ; — 
Reserve or censure come not near 

Our sacred friendship, lest there be 

No solace left for thou and me. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Gentle and good and mild thou art, 
Nor can I live if thou appear 

Aught but thyself, or turn thine heart 
Away from me, or stoop to wear 

The mask of scorn, although it be 

To hide the love thou feel'st for me. 



SONG. 

Rarely, rarelv, comestthou, 

Spirit of Delight ! 
Wherefore hast thou left me now 

Many a day and night ? 
Many a weary night and day 
'Tis since thou art fled away. 

How shall ever one like me 

Win thee back again ? 
With the joyous and the free 

Thou wilt scoff at pain. 
Spirit false ! thou hast forgot 
All but those who need thee not. 

As a lizard with the shade 

Of a trembling leaf, 
Thou with sorrow art dismayed ; 

Even the sighs of grief 
Reproach thee, that thou art not near, 
And reproach thou wilt not hear. 

Let me set my mournful ditty 

To a merry measure ; — 
Thou wilt never come for pity, 

Thou wilt come for pleasure ; — 
Pity then will cut away 
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. 



TO 

I love all that thou lovest, 

Spirit of Delight ! 
The fresh Earth in new leaves drest, 

And the starry night ; 
Autumn evening, and the mom 
When the golden mists are horn. 

I love snow, and all the forms 

Of the radiant frost ; 
I love waves, and winds, and storms, 

Everything almost 
Which is Nature's, and may he 
Untainted by man's misery. 

I love tranquil solitude, 

And such society 
As is quiet, wise, and good ; 

Between thee and me 
What difference ? hut thou dost possess 
The things I seek, not love them less, 

I love Love — though he has wings, 

' And like light can flee, 
But, above all other things, 

Spirit, I love thee — 
Thou art love and life ! come, 
Make once more my heart thy home, 



TO- 



When passion's trance is overpast, 
If tenderness and truth could last 
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep 
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep, 
I should not weep, I should not weep ! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

It were enough to feel, to see 
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly, 
And dream the rest — and burn and be 
The secret food of fires unseen, 
Couldst thou but be as thou hast been. 

After the slumber of the year 
The woodland violets reappear ; 
All things revive in field or grove, 
And sky and sea ; but two, which move, 
And for all others, life and love. 



LINES. 

Far, far away, O ye 
Halcyons of Memory ! 
Seek some far calmer nest 
Than this abandoned breast ; — 
No news of your false spring 
To my heart's winter bring ; 
Once having gone, in vain 
Ye come again. 

Vultures, who build your bowers 
High in the Future's towers ! 
Withered hopes on hopes are spread ; 
Dying joys choked by the dead, 
Will serve your beaks for prey 
Many a day. 



LINES ON THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON. 



A FRAGMENT. 

As a violet's gentle eye 

Gazes on the azure sky, 
Until its hue grows like what it beholds ; 

As a grey and empty mist 

Lies like solid Amethyst, 
Over the western mountain it enfolds, 

When the sunset sleeps 
Upon its snow. 

As a strain of sweetest sound 
Wraps itself the wind around, 

Until the voiceless wind be music too ; 
As aught dark, vain and dull, 
Basking in what is beautiful, 

Is full of light and love. 



LINES 

.VRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOI 

What ! alive and so bold, Earth ? 

Art thou not over-bold ? 
What ! leapest thou forth as of old 

In the light of thy morning mirth, 
The last of the flock of the starry fold \ . 
Ha ! leapest thou forth as of old ? 
Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled, 
And canst thou more, Napoleon being dead \ 

How ! is not thy quick heart cold ? 

What spark is alive on thy hearth ? 
How ! is not Ms death-knell knolled ? 

And livest thou still, Mother Earth ? 



'266 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Thou wert warming thy fingers old 

O'er the embers covered and cold 

Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled — 

What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead ? 

" Who has known me of old," replied Earth, 

" Or who has my story told ? 
It is thou who art over bold." 

And the lightning of scorn laughed forth 
As she sung, " To my bosom I fold 
All my sons when their knell is knolled, 
And so with living motion all are fed, 
And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead. 

" Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth, 
" I grow bolder, and still more bold. 

The dead fill me ten thousandfold 

Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth ; 

I was cloudy, and sullen and cold, 

Like a frozen chaos uprolled, 

Till by the spirit of the mighty dead 

My heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed. 

" Ay, alive and still bold," muttered Earth, 

" Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled, 
In terror, and blood, and gold, 

A torrent of ruin to death from his birth. 
Leave the millions who follow to mould 
The metal before it be cold, 
And weave into his shame, which like the dead 
Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled." 



LYRICS 

FROM THE DRAMA OF HELLAS. 
FIRST CHORUS OF GREEK CAPTIVE WOMEN. 

SEMICHORUS I. 

Would I were the winged cloud 
Of a tempest swift and loud ! 

I would scorn 

The smile of morn, 
And the wave where the moon-rise is born ! 

I would leave 

The spirits of eve 
A shroud for the corpse of the day to weave 
From other threads than mine ! 
Bask in the blue noon divine 

Who would, not I. 

SEMICHORUS II. 

Whither to fly ? 

SEMICHORUS I. 

Where the rocks that gird th' iEgean 
Echo to the battle psean 
Of the free — 
I would flee 
A tempestuous herald of victory ! 
My golden rain 
For the Grecian slain 
Should mingle in tears with the bloody main ; 
And my solemn thunder-knell 
Should ring to the world the passing-bell 
Of tyranny ! 

SEMICHORUS n. 

Ah king ! wilt thou chain 
The rack and the rain ? 
Wilt thou fetter the lightning and hurricane \ 

n 2 



?« MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The storms are free, 
But we 

CHORUS. 

O Slavery ! thou frost of the world's prime, 

Killing its flowers and leaving its thorns hare ! 
Thy touch has stamped these limbs with crime, 
These brows thy branding garland bear ; 
But the free heart, the impassive soul, 
Scorn thy control ! 

SEIH ICHOR CS I. 

Let there be light ! said Liberty ; 
And like sunrise from the sea, 
Athens arose ! — Around her born, 
Shone like mountains in the morn, 
Glorious states ; — and are they now 
Ashes, wrecks, oblivion ? 

SEAIICHORUS II. 

Go 
Where Thermse and Asopus swallowed 

Persia, as the sand does foam. 
Deluge upon deluge followed, 

Discord, Macedon, and Rome : 
And, lastly, thou ! 

SEMICHORUS I. 

Temples and towers, 
Citadels and marts, and they 

Who live and die there, have been ours, 
And may be thine, and must decay ; 

But Greece and her foundations are 

Built below the tide of war, 

Based on the crystalline sea 

Of thought and its eternity ; 
Her citizens, imperial spirits, 

Rule the present from the past, 
On all this world of men inherits 

Their seal is set. 



LYRICS FROM THE DRAMA OF HELLAS. 

SEMICHORUS II. 

Hear ye the blast, 
Whose Orphic thunder thrilling calls 
From ruin her Titanian walls \ 
Whose spirit shakes the sapless bones 

Of Slavery ? Argos, Corinth, Crete, 
Hear, and from their mountain thrones 

The daemons and the nymphs repeat 
The harmony. 

SEMICHORUS I. 

I hear ! I hear ! 

SEMICHORUS It. 

The world's eyeless charioteer, 

Destiny, is hurrying by ! 
What faith is crushed, what empire bleeds 
Beneath her earthcoiake-footed steeds ? 
What eagle- winged victory sits 
At her right hand ? what shadow flits 
Before ? what splendour rolls behind ? 

Ruin and Renovation cry, 
Who but we ? 

SEMICHORUS I. 

I hear ! I hear ! 
The hiss as of a rushing wind, 
The roar as of an ocean foaming, 
The thunder as of earthquake coming, 

I hear ! I hear ! 
The crash as of an empire falling, 
The shrieks as of a people calling 
Mercy ! Mercy ! — How they thrill ! 
Then a shout of « Kill ! kill ! kill !" 
And then a small still voice, thus — 

SEMICHORUS II. 

For 
Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The foul cubs like their parents are, 
Their den is in their guilty mind, 

And Conscience feeds them with despair. 

SEMICHORUS I. 

In sacred Athens, near the fane 

Of Wisdom, Pity's altar stood ; 
Serve not the unknown God in vain, 
But pay that broken shrine again 
Love for hate, and tears for blood. 



SECOND CHORUS OF GREEK CAPTIVE WOMEN. 
SEMICHORUS I. 

Victorious Wrong, with vulture scream, 
Salutes the risen sun, pursues the flying day ! 

I saw her ghastly as a tyrants' dream, 
Perch on the trembling pyramid of night, 
Beneath which earth and all her realms pavilioned lay 
In visions of the dawning undelight. 

Who shall impede her flight ? 
Who rob her of her prey ? 

SEMICHORUS II. 

Thou voice which art 

The herald of the ill in splendour hid ! 
Thou echo of the hollow heart 

Of monarchy, bear me to thine abode 

When desolation flashes o'er a world destroyed. 
Oh bear me to those isles of jagged cloud 

Which float like mountains on the earthquakes, 'mid 
The momentary oceans of the lightning ; 

Or to some toppling promontory proud i 

Of solid tempest, whose black pyramid, 
Riven, overhangs the founts intensely brightening 

Of those dawn-tinted deluges of fire 

Before their wave's expire, 
When heaven and earth are light, and only light 
In the thunder-night ! 



LYRICS FROM THE DRAMA OF HELLAS. 27J 

SBMICHORUS I. 

Alas for Liberty ! 
If numbers, wealth, or unfulfilling years, 
Or fate, can quell the free ; 
Alas for Virtue ! when 
Torments, or contumely, or the sneers 
Of erring judging men 
Can break the heart where it abides. 
Alas ! if Love, whose smile makes this obscure world 
splendid, 

Can change, with its false times and tides, 
Like hope and terror — 
Alas for Love ! 
And Truth, who wanderest lone and unbefriended, 
If thou canst veil thy he-consuming mirror 
Before the dazzled eyes of Error. 
Alas for thee ! Image of the Above. 

SEMICHORUS IT. 

Repulse, with plumes from conquest torn, 

Led the ten thousand from the limits of the morn 

Through many an hostile Anarchy ! 
At length they wept aloud and cried, " The sea ! the sea !" 
Through exile, persecution, and despair, 

Rome was, and young Atlantis shall become 
The wonder, or the terror, or the tomb 
Of all whose step wakes power lulled in her savage lair : 
But Greece was as a hermit child, 
Whose fairest thoughts and limbs were built 
To woman's growth, by dreams so mild 
She knew not pain or guilt ; 
And now, O Victory, blush ! and Empire, tremble, 
When ye desert the free ! 
If Greece must be 
A wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble, 
And build themselves again impregnably 

In a diviner clime, 
To Amphionic music, on some Cape sublime, 
Which frowns above the idle foam of Time. 



272 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

SEMICHORUS I. 

Let the tyrants rule the desert they have made ; 

Let the free possess the paradise they claim ; 
Be the fortune of our fierce oppressors weighed 

With our ruin, our resistance, and our name ! 

SEMICHORUS II. 

Our dead shall he the seed of their decay, 
Our survivors he the shadows of their pride, 

Our adversity a dream to pass away — 

Their dishonour a remembrance to abide ! 

SEMICHORUS I. 

Darkness has dawned in the East 

On the noon of time : 
The death-birds descend to their feast, 

From the hungry clime. 
Let Freedom and Peace flee far 

To a sunnier strand, 
And follow Love's folding star ! 

To the Evening land ! 

SEMICHORUS II. 

The young moon has fed 
Her exhausted horn 
With the sunset's fire : 
The weak day is dead, 

But the night is not born ; 
And, like loveliness panting with wild desire, 
While it trembles with fear and delight, 
Hesperus flies from awakening night, 
And pants in its beauty and speed with light 
Fast-flashing, soft, and bright. 
Thou beacon of love ! thou lamp of the free ! 

Guide us far, far away, 
To climes where now, veiled by the ardour of day, 
Thou art hidden 
From waves on which weary noon 
Faints in her summer swoon. 



LYRICS FROM THE DRAMA OF HELLAS. 273 

Between kingless continents, sinless as Eden, 
Around mountains and islands inviolably 
Prankt on the sapphire sea. 

SEMICHORUS I. 

Through the sunset of hope, 

Like the shapes of a dream, 

What Paradise islands of glory gleam 
Beneath Heaven's cope. 

Their shadows more clear float by — 
The sound of their oceans, the light of their sky, 
The music and fragrance their solitudes breathe, 
Burst like morning on dreams, or like Heaven on death, 

Through the walls of our prison ; 

And Greece, which was dead, is arisen ! 

CHORUS. 

The world's great age begins anew, 

The golden years return, 
The earth doth like a snake renew 
Her winter weeds outworn : 
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam 
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. 

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains 

From waves serener far ; 
A new Peneus rolls its fountains 

Against the morning-star. 
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep 
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. 

A loftier Argo cleaves the main, 

Fraught with a later prize ; 
Another Orpheus sings again, 

And loves, and weeps, and dies. 
A new Ulysses leaves once more 
Calypso for his native shore. 

write no more the tale of Troy, 
If earth Death's scroll must be ! 

N 3 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Nor mix with Laian rage the joy 

Which dawns upon the free : 
Although a subtler sphinx renew 
Riddles of death Thebes never knew. 



Another Athens shall arise, 

And to remoter time 
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, 

The splendour of its prime ; 
And leave, if nought so bright may live, 
All earth can take or heaven can give. 

Saturn and Love their long repose 
Shall burst, more bright and good 

Than all who fell, than One who rose, ' 
Than many unsubdued : 

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, 

But votive tears, and symbol flowers. 

cease ! must hate and death return ? 
Cease ! must men kill and die ? 
Cease ! drain not to its dregs the urn 

Of bitter prophecy. 
The world is weary of the past, 
might it die or rest at last ! 



TO-MORROW. 



Where art thou, beloved To-morrow? 

When young and old, and strong and weak, 
Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow, 

Thy sweet smiles we ever seek, — 
In thy place — ah ! well-a-day ! 
We find the thing we fled — To-day. 



A FRAGMENT. 



A BRIDAL SONG. 



The golden gates of sleep unbar 

Where strength and beauty, met together. 
Kindle their image like a star 

In a sea of glassy weather ! 
Night, with all thy stars look down, — 

Darkness, weep thy holiest dew, — 
Never smiled the inconstant moon 

On a pair so true. 
Let eyes not see their own delight ; — 
Haste, swift Horn', and thy flight 
Oft renew. 

Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her ! 

Holy stars, permit no wrong ! 
And return to wake the sleeper, 

Dawn, — ere it be long. 
O joy ! O fear ! what will be done 

In the absence of the sun ! 
Come along ! 



A FRAGMENT. 



They were two cousins, almost like two twins. 

Except that from the catalogue of sins 

Nature had razed their love — which could not be 

But by dissevering their nativity. 

And so they grew together, like two flowers 

Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers 

Lull or awaken in then' purple prime, 

Which the same hand will gather— the same clime 



276 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see 

All those who love, — and who e'er loved like thee, 

Fiordispina \ Scarcely Cosimo, 

Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow 

The ardours of a vision which obscure 

The very idol of its portraiture ; 

He faints, dissolved into a sense of love ; 

But thou art as a planet sphered above, 

But thou art Love itself — ruling the motion 

Of his subjected spirit : such emotion 

Must end in sin or sorrow, if sweet May 

Had not brought forth this morn — your wedding-day. 



EVENING. 

PONTB A MARE, PISA. 



The sun is set ; the swallows are asleep ; 

The bats are flitting fast in the grey air ; 
The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep ; 

And evening's breath, wandering here and there 
Over the quivering surface of the stream, 
Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream. 

There are no dews on the dry grass to-night, 
Nor damp within the shadow of the trees ; 

The wind is intermitting, dry, and light ; 
And in the inconstant motion of the breeze 

The dust and straws are driven up and down, 

And whirled about the pavement of the town. 

Within the surface of the fleeting river 

The wrinkled image of the city lay, 
Immoveably unquiet, and for ever 

It trembles, but it never fades away ; 
Go to the [ ] 

You, being changed, will find it then as now, 



A LAMENT. 

The chasm in which the sun has sunk, is shut 
By darkest barriers of enormous cloud, 

Like mountain over mountain huddled — but 
Growing and moving upwards in a crowd, 

And over it a space of watery blue, 

Which the keen evening star is shining through. 



A LAMENT. 



Swifter far than summer's flight, 
Swifter far than youth's delight, 
Swifter far than happy night, 

Art thou come and gone : 
As the earth when leaves are dead, 
As the night when sleep is sped, 
As the heart when joy is fled, 

I am left lone, alone, 

The swallow Summer comes again, 
The owlet Night resumes her reign, 
But the wild swan Youth is fain 

To fly with thee, false as thou. 
My heart each day desires the morrow, 
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow, 
Vainly would my winter borrow 

Sunny leaves from any bough. 

Lilies for a bridal bed, 
Roses for a matron's head, 
Violets for a maiden dead, 

Pansies let my flowers be : 
On the living grave I bear, 
Scatter them without a tear, 
Let no friend, however dear, 

Waste one hope, one fear for me. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE BOAT, 

ON THE SERCHIO. 



OtR boat is asleep on Serchio's stream, 
Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, 
The helm sways idly, hither and thither ; 
Dominic, the boat-man, has brought the mast, 
And the oars and the sails ; but 'tis sleeping fast, 
Like a beast, unconscious of its tether. 

The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, 
And the thin white moon lay withering there, 
To tower, and cavern, and rift, and tree, 
The owl and the bat fled drowsily. 
Day had kindled the dewy woods 
And the rocks above and the stream below, 
And the vapours in their multitudes, 
And the Apennines' shroud of summer snow, 
And clothed with light of aery gold 
The mists in their eastern caves uprolled. 

Day had awakened all things that be, 
The lark and the thrush and the swallow free ; 
And the milkmaid's song and the mower's scythe, 
And the matin-bell and the mountain bee : 
Fire-flies were quenched on the dewy corn, 
Glow-worms went out on the river's brim, 
Like lamps which a student forgets to trim : 
The beetle forgot to wind his horn, 
The crickets were still in the meadow and hill : 
Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun, 
Night's dreams and terrors, every one, 
Fled from the brains which are their prey, 
From the lamp's death to the morning ray. 



THE BOAT. 

All rose to do the task He set to each, 
Who shaped us to his ends and not our own'; 
The million rose to learn, and one to teach 
What none yet ever knew or can be known. 

And many rose 
Whose woe was such that fear became desire ; — 
Melchior and Lionel were not among those ; 
They from the throng of men had stepped aside, 
And made their home under the green hill side. 
It was that hill, whose intervening brow 
Screens Lucca from the Pisan's envious eye, 
Which the circumfluous plain w r aving below, 
Like a wide lake of green fertility, 
With streams and fields and marshes bare, 
Divides from the far Apennines — which lie 
Islanded in the immeasurable air. 

" What think you, as she lies in her green cove, 
Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of \ 
If morning dreams are true, why I should guess 
That she was dreaming of our idleness, 
And of the miles of watery way 
We should have led her by this time of day." — 

-"Never mind," said Lionel, 



"Give care to the winds, they can bear it well 
About yon poplar tops ; and see ! 
The white clouds are driving merrily, 
And the stars we miss this mom will light 
More willingly our return to-night. — 
List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair ; 
How it scatters Dominic's long black hair ! 
Singing of us, and our lazy motions, 
If I can guess a boat's emotions." — 

The chain is loosed, the sails are spread, 
The living breath is fresh behind, 
As, with dews and sunrise fed, 
Comes the laughing morning wind ; — 






280 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The sails are full, the boat makes head 

Against the Serchio's torrent fierce. 

Then flags with intermitting course, 

And hangs upon the wave, 

Which fervid from its mountain source 

Shallow, smooth, and strong, doth come, — 

Swift as fire, tempestuously 

It sweeps into the affrighted sea ; 

In morning's smile its eddies coil, 

Its billows sparkle, toss, and boil, 

Torturing all its quiet light 

Into columns fierce and bright. 

The Serchio, twisting forth 
Between the marble barriers which it clove 
At Ripafratta, leads through the dread chasm 
The wave that died the death which lovers love, 
Living in what it sought ; as if this spasm 
Had not yet past, the toppling mountains cling, 
But the clear stream in full enthusiasm 
Pours itself on the plain, until wandering, 
Down one clear path of effluence crystalline 
Sends its clear waves, that they may fling 
At Amo's feet tribute of corn and wine : 
Then, through the pestilential deserts wild 
Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted fir, 
It rushes to the Ocean. 



THE AZIOLA. 



" Do you not hear the Aziola cry ? 
Methinks she must be nigh," 

Said ISIary, as we sate 
In dusk, ere the stars were lit, or candles brought ; 

And I, who thought 
This Aziola was some tedious woman, 

Asked, " Who is Aziola ? " How elate 



SONG OF BEATRICE CENCI. 

I felt to know that it was nothing human, 
No mockery of myself to fear and hate ! 
And Mary saw my soul, 

And laughed and said, " Disquiet yourself not, 
'Tis nothing hut a little downy owl." 

Sad Aziola ! many an eventide 

Thy music I had heard 
By wood and stream, meadow and mountain side, 
And fields and marshes wide, — 

Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird, 

The soul ever stirred ; 
Unlike and far sweeter than they all : 
Sad Aziola ! from that moment I 
Loved thee and thy sad cry. 



SONG OF BEATRICE CENCI. 

False friend, wilt thou smile or weep 
When my life is laid asleep ? 
Little cares for a smile or a tear, 
The clay-cold corpse upon the bier ; 

Farewell ! heigh ho ! 

What is this whispers low ? 
There is a snake in thy smile, my dear ; 
And bitter poison within thy tear. 

Sweet sleep ! were death like to thee, 
Or if thou couldst mortal be, 
I would close these eyes of pain ; 
When to wake \ Never again. 

O world ! farewell ! 

Listen to the passing bell ! 
It says, thou and I must part, 
With a light and a heavy heart. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



TO- 



One word is too often profaned. 

For me to profane it, 
One feeling too falsely disdained 

For thee to disdain it. 
One hope is too like despair 

For prudence to smother, 
And Pity from thee more dear 

Than that from another. 

I can give not what men call love, 

But wilt thou accept not 
The worship the heart lifts ahove 

And the Heavens reject not : 
The desire of the moth for the star, 

Of the night for the morrow, 
The devotion to something afar 

From the sphere of our sorrow ? 



GOOD-NIGHT. 



Good-mght ? ah ! no ; the hour is ill 
Which severs those it should unite ; 

Let us remain together still, 
Then it will be good night. 

How can I call the lone night good, 

Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight ? 

Be it not said, thought, understood, 
That it will be good night. 

To hearts which near each other move 
From evening close to morning light, 

The night is good ; because, my love, 
They never say good-night. 



LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR, 



A LAMENT. 



O World ! life ! O time ! 
On whose last steps I climb, 

Trembling at that where I had stood before ; 
When will return the glory of your prime ? 
No more — Oh, never more ! 

Ont of the day and night 
A joy has taken flight : 

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, 
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight 
No more — Oh, never more ! 



LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR, 

I arise from dreams of thee 
In the first sweet sleep of night, 
When the winds are breathing low, 
And the stars are shining bright. 
I arise from dreams of thee, 
And a spirit in my feet 
Has led me — who knows how ? 
To thy chamber window, sweet ! 

The wandering airs they faint 
On the dark, the silent stream — 
The champak odours fail 
Like sweet thoughts in a dream ; 
The nightingale's complaint, 
It dies upon her heart, 
As I must die on thine, 
beloved as thou art ! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

lift me from the grass ! 

1 die, I faint, I fail ! 

Let thy love in kisses rain 
On my lips and eyelids pale. 
My cheek is cold and white, alas ! 
My heart beats loud and fast, 
Oh ! press it close to thine again, 
Where it will break at last. 



MUSIC. 



I pant for the music which is divine, 
My heart in its thirst is a dying flower ; 

Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine, 
Loosen the notes in a silver shower ; 

Like a herbless plain for the gentle rain, 

I gasp, I faint, till they wake again. 

Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound, 
More, O more ! — I am thirsting yet, 

It loosens the serpent which care has bound 
Upon my heart, to stifle it ; 

The dissolving strain, through every vein, 

Passes into my heart and brain. 

As the scent of a violet withered up, 

Which grew by the brink of a silver lake, 

When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup, 
And mist there was none its thirst to slake — 

A nd the violet lay dead while the odour flew 

On the wings of the wind o'er the waters blue — 

As one who drinks from a charmed cup 

Of foaming, and sparkling, and murmuring wine, 

Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up, 
Invites to love with her kiss divine. 



The serpent is shut out from paradise. 

The wounded deer must seek the herb no more 

In which its heart-cure lies : 
The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower, 
Like that from which its mate with feigned sighs 

Fled in the April hour. 
I too, must seldom seek again 
Near happy friends a mitigated pain. 



Of hatred I am proud, — with scorn content ; 
Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown 

Itself indifferent. 
But, not to speak of love, pity alone 
Can break a spirit already more than bent. 

The miserable one 
Turns the mind's poison into food, — 
Its medicine is tears, — its evil good. 



Therefore if now I see you seldomer, 

Dear friends, dear friend I know that I only fly 

Your looks because they stir 
Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot die : 
The very comfort that they minister 

I scarce can bear ; yet I, 
So deeply is the arrow gone, 
Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn. 



When I return to my cold home, you ask 
Why I am not as I have ever been ? 
You spoil me for the task 



286 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Of acting a forced part on life's dull scene. — 
Of wearing on my brow the idle mask 

Of author, great or mean, 
In the world's Carnival. I sought 
Peace thus, and but in you I found it not. 



Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot 
With various flowers, and every one still said, 

" She loves me, loves me not ."* 

And if this meant a vision long since fled — 
If it meant fortune, fame, or peace of thought — 

If it meant — but I dread 
To speak what you may know too well : 
Still there was truth in the sad oracle. 



The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home ; 
No bird so wild, but has its quiet nest, 

When it no more would roam ; 
The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast 
Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam, 

And thus, at length, find rest : 
Doubtless there is a place of peace 
Where my weak heart and all its throbs will cease. 



I asked her, yesterday, if she believed 
That I had resolution. One who Tiad 

Would ne'er have thus relieved 
His heart with words, — but what his judgment bade 
Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved. 

These verses are too sad 
To send to you, but that I know, 
Happy yourself, you feel another's woe. 



DIRGE FOR THE YEAR. 



SONNET. 

POLITICAL GREATNESS. 



Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame, 

Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, 

Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame ; 

Verse echoes not one heating of their hearts : 

History is but the shadow of their shame ; 

Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts 

As to oblivion their blind millions fleet, 

Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery 

Of their own likeness. What are numbers, knit 

By force or custom ? Man who man would be, 

Must rule the empire of himself ! in it 

Must be supreme, establishing his throne 

On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy 

Of hopes and fears, being himself alone. 



DIRGE FOR THE YEAR. 

Orphan hours, the year is dead, 
Come and sigh, come and weep ! 

Merry hours, smile instead, 
For the year is but asleep : 

See, it smiles as it is sleeping, 

Mocking your untimely weeping. 

As an earthquake rocks a corse 

In its coffin in the clay, 
So White Winter, that rough nurse, 

Rocks the dead-cold year to-day ; 
Solemn hours ! wail aloud 
For your mother in her shroud. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

As the wild air stirs and sways 
The tree-swung cradle of a child, 

So the breath of these rude days 

Rocks the year : — be calm and mild, 

Trembling hours ; she will arise 

With new love within her eyes. 

January grey is here, 

Like a sexton by her grave ; 

February bears the bier, 

March with grief doth howl and rave, 

And April weeps — but, ye hours ! 

Follow with May's fairest flowers. 



THE ZUCCA*. 

Summer was dead and Autumn was expiring, 
And infant Winter laughed upon the land 

All cloudlessly and cold ; — when I, desiring 
More in this world than any understand, 

Wept o'er the beauty, which, like sea retiring, 
Had left the earth bare as the wave-worn sand 

Of my poor heart, and o'er the grass and flowers 

Pale for the falsehood of the flattering hours. 

Summer was dead, but I yet lived to weep 

The instability of all but weeping ; 
And on the earth lulled in her winter sleep 

I woke, and envied her as she was sleeping. 
Too happy Earth ! over thy face shall creep 

The wakening vernal airs, until thou, leaping 
From unremembered dreams shalt [ ] see 

No death divide thy immortality. 

* Pumpkin. 



THE ZUCCA. 

I loved — no, I mean not one of ye, 
Or any earthly one, though ye are dear 

As human heart to human heart may he ; — 
I loved, I know not what — but this low sphere, 

And all that it contains, contains not thee, 

Thou, whom, seen nowhere, I feel everywhere, 

Dim object of my soul's idolatry. 



By Heaven and Earth, from all whose shapes thou 
flowest, 

Neither to be contained, delayed, or hidden, 
Making divine the loftiest and the lowest, 

When for a moment thou art not forbidden 
To live within the life which thou bestowest, 

And leaving noblest things, vacant and chidden, 
Cold as a corpse after the spirit's flight, 
Blank as the sun after the birth of night. 

In winds, and trees, and streams, and all things 
common, 

In music, and the sweet unconscious tone 
Of animals, and voices which are human, 

Meant to express some feelings of their own ; 
In the soft motions and rare smile of woman, 

In flowers and leaves, and in the fresh grass 
shown, 
Or dying in the autumn, I the most 
Adore thee present, or lament thee lost. 

And thus I went lamenting, when I saw 

A plant upon the river's margin he, 
Like one who loved beyond his Nature's law, 

And in despair had cast him doAvn to die ; 
Its leaves which had outlived the frost, the thaw 

Had blighted as a heart which hatred's eye 
Can blast not, but which pity kills ; the dew 
Lay on its spotted leaves like tears too true. 



290 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The Heavens had wept upon it, but the Earth 
Had crushed it on her unmatemal breast 



I bore it to my chamber, and I planted 

It in a vase full of the lightest mould ; 
The winter beams which out of Heaven slanted 

Fell through the window panes, disrobed of cold, 
Upon its leaves and flowers ; the star which panted 

In evening for the Day, whose car has rolled 
Over the horizon's wave, with looks of light 
Smiled on it from the threshold of the night. 

The mitigated influences of air 

And light revived the plant, and from it grew 
Strong leaves and tendrils, and its flowers fair, 

Full as a cup with the vine's burning dew, 
O'erflowed with golden colours ; an atmosphere 

Of vital warmth, infolded it anew, 
And every impulse sent to every part 
The unbeheld pulsations of its heart. 

Well might the plant grow beautiful and strong, 
Even if the sun and air had smiled not on it ; 

For one wept o'er it all the winter long 

Tears pure as Heaven's rain, winch fell upon it 

Hour after hour ; for sounds of softest song 
Mixed with the stringed melodies that won it 

To leave the gentle lips on which it slept, 

Had loosed the heart of him who sat and wept. 

Had loosed his heart, and shook the leaves and flowers 
On which he wept, the while the savage storm 

Waked by the darkest of December's hours 

Was raving round the chamber hushed and warm ; 

The birds were shivering in their leafless bowers, 
The fish were frozen in the pools, the form 

Of every summer plant was dead [ ] 

Whilst this * * * 



TO A LADY WITH A GUITAR. 

Ariel to Miranda : — Take 

This slave of music, for the sake 

Of him, who is the slave of thee ; 

And teach it all the harmony 

In which thou canst, and only thou, 

Make the delighted spirit glow, 

Till joy denies itself again, 

And, too intense, is turned to pain. 

For by permission and eommand 

Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, 

Poor Ariel sends this silent token 

Of more than ever can be spoken ; 

Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who 

From life to life must still pursue 

Your happiness, for thus alone 

Can Ariel ever find his own ; 

From Prospero's enchanted cell, 

As the mighty verses tell, 

To the throne of Naples he 

Lit you o'er the trackless sea, 

Flitting on, your prow before, 

Like a living meteor. 

When you die, the silent Moon, 

In her interlunar swoon, 

Is not sadder in her cell 

Than deserted Ariel ; 

When you live again on earth, 

Like an - unseen Star of birth, 

Ariel gu~d.es you o'er the sea 

Of life from your nativity : 

Many changes have been run 

Since Ferdinand and you begun 

Your course of love, and Ariel still 

Has tracked your steps and served your will. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Now in humbler, happier lot, 
This is all remembered not ; 
And now, alas ! the poor sprite is 
Imprisoned for some fault of his 
In a body like a grave — 
From you, he only dares to crave, 
For his service and his sorrow, 
A smile to-day, a song to-morrow. 

The artist who this idol wrought, 
To echo all harmonious thought, 
Felled a tree, while on the steep 
The woods were in their winter sleep. 
Rocked in that repose divine 
On the wind-swept Apennine : 
And dreaming, some of autumn past, 
And some of spring approaching fast, 
And some of April buds and showers, 
And some of songs in July bowers, 
And all of love ; and so this tree, — 
O that such our death may be ! — 
Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 
To live in happier form again : 
From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star, 
The artist wrought this loved Guitar, 
And taught it justly to reply, 
To all who question skilfully, 
In language gentle as thine own ; 
Whispering in enamoured tone 
Sweet oracles of woods and dells, 
And summer winds in sylvan cells ; 
For it had learnt all harmonies 
Of the plains and of the skies, 
Of the forests and the mountains, 
And the many-voiced fountains ; 
The clearest echoes of the hills, 
The softest notes of falling rills, 
The melodies of birds and bees, 
The murmuring of summer seas, 



THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER PATIENT. 

And pattering rain, and breathing dew, 
And airs of evening ; and it knew 
That seldom-heard mysterious sound, 
Which, driven on its diurnal round, 
As it floats through boundless day, 
Our world enkindles on its way — 
All this it knows, but will not tell 
To those who cannot question well 
The spirit that inhabits it ; 
It talks according to the wit 
Of its companions ; and no more 
Is heard than has been felt before, 
By those who tempt it to betray 
These secrets of an elder day. 
But, sweetly as its answers will 
Flatter hands of perfect skill, 
It keeps its highest, holiest tone 
For our beloved friend alone. 



THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER PATIENT. 

« Sleep, sleep on ! forget thy pain ; 

My hand is on thy brow, 
My spirit on thy brain ; 
My pity on thy heart, poor friend ; 

And from my fingers flow 
The powers of life, and like a sign, 

Seal thee from thine hour of woe ; 
And brood on thee, but may not blend 
With thine. 

" Sleep, sleep on ! I love thee not ; 

But when I think that he 
Who made and makes my lot 
As full of flowers, as thine of weeds. 

Might have been lost like thee ; 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

And that a hand which was not mine 
Might then have chased his agony 
As I another's — my heart bleeds 
For thine. 

" Sleep, sleep, and with the slumber of 

The dead and the unborn 
Forget thy life and love ; 
Forget that thou must wake for ever ; 

Forget the world's dull scorn ; 
Forget lost health, and the divine 

Feelings which died in youth's brief morn ; 
And forget me, for I can never 
Be thine. 

" Like a cloud big with a May shower, 

My soul weeps healing rain 
On thee, thou withered flower, 
It breathes mute music on thy sleep, 

Its odour calms thy brain ! 
Its light within thy gloomy breast 

Spreads like a second youth again. 
By mine thy being is to its deep 
Possest. 

" The spell is done. How feel you now % " 

"Better — Quite well," replied 
The sleeper, — " What would do 
You good when suffering and awake ? 

What cure your head and side ? — " 
" 'Twould kill me what would cure my pain ; 

And as I must on earth abide 
Awhile, yet tempt me not to break 
My chain." 



THE INVITATION. 

Best and brightest, come away, 
Fairer far than this fair day, 
Winch like thee to those in sorrow, 
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow 
To the rough year just awake 
In its cradle on the brake. 
The brightest hour of unborn spring, 
Through the winter wandering, 
Found it seems the halcyon morn, 
To hoar February born ; 
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, 
It kissed the forehead of the earth, 
And smiled upon the silent sea, 
And bade the frozen streams be free ; 
And waked to music all their fountains, 
And breathed upon the frozen mountains, 
And like a prophetess of May, 
Strewed flowers upon the barren way, 
Making the wintry world appear 
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. 

Away, away, from men and towns, 
To the wild wood and the downs — 
To the silent wilderness 
Where the soul need not repress 
Its music, lest it should not find 
An echo in another's mind, 
While the touch of Nature's art 
Harmonizes heart to heart. 
I leave this notice on my door 
For each accustomed visitor : — 
" I am gone into the fields 
To take what this sweet hour yields ; — 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Reflection, you may come to-morrow, 
Sit by the fireside of Sorrow. — 
You with the unpaid bill, Despair, 
You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care, 
I will pay you in the grave, 
Death will listen to your stave. — 
Expectation too, be off ! 
To-day is for itself enough ; 
Hope in pity mock not woe 
With smiles, nor follow where I go ; 
Long having lived on thy sweet food, 
At length I find one moment good 
After long pain — with all your love, 
This you never told me of." 

Radiant Sister of the Day, 
Awake ! arise ! and come away ! 
To the wild woods and the plains, 
To the pools where winter rains 
Image all their roof of leaves, 
Where the pine its garland weaves 
Of sapless green, and ivy dun, 
Round stems that never kiss the sun, 
Where the lawns and pastures be 
And the sandhills of the sea, 
Where the melting hoar-frost wets 
The daisy-star that never sets, 
And wind-flowers and violets, 
Which yet join not scent to hue, 
Crown the pale year weak and new ; 
When the night is left behind 
In the deep east, dim and blind, 
And the blue noon is over us, 
And the multitudinous 
Billows murmur at our feet, 
Where the earth and ocean meet, 
And all things seem only one, 
In the universal sun, 



THE RECOLLECTION. 

Now the last day of many days, 
All beautiful and bright as thou, 
The loveliest and the last, is dead, 
Rise, Memory, and write its praise ! 
Up to thy wonted work ! come, trace 
The epitaph of glory dead, 
For now the Earth has changed its face, 
A frown is on the Heaven's brow. 



We wandered to the pine Forest 

That skirts the Ocean foam, 
The lightest wind was in its nest, 

The tempest in its home. 
The whispering waves were half asleep, 

The clouds were gone to play, 
And on the bosom of the deep, 

The smile of Heaven lay ; 
It seemed as if the hour were one 

Sent from beyond the skies, 
Which scattered from above the sun 

A light of Paradise, 



We paused amid the pines that stood 

The giants of the waste, 
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude 

As serpents interlaced. 
And soothed by every azure breath, 

That under heaven is blown, 
To harmonies and hues beneath, 

As tender as its own : 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Now all the tree tops lay asleep, 
Like green waves on the sea, 

As still as in the silent deep 
The ocean woods may be. 

IN. 

How calm it was ! — the silence there 

By such a chain was bound, 
That even the busy wood-pecker 

Made stiller by her sound 
The inviolable quietness ; 

The breath of peace we. drew 
With its soft motion made not less 

The calm that round us grew. 
There seemed from the remotest seat 

Of the wide mountain waste, 
To the soft flower beneath our feet, 

A magic circle traced, 
A spirit interfused around 

A thrilling silent life, 
To momentary peace it bound 

Our mortal nature's strife ; — 
And still I felt the centre of 

The magic circle there, 
Was one fair form that filled with love 

The lifeless atmosphere. 

IV. 

We paused beside the pools that lie 

Under the forest bough, 
Each seemed as 'twere a little sky 

Gulfed in a world below ; 
A firmament of purple fight, 

Which in the dark earth lay, 
More boundless than the depth of night, 

And purer than the day — 
In which the lovely forests grew, 

As in the upper air, 
More perfect both in shape and hue 

Than any spreading there. 



There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, 

And through the dark green wood 
The white sun twinkling like the dawn 

Out of a speckled cloud. 
Sweet views which in our world above 

Can never well be seen, 
Were imaged by the water's love 

Of that fair forest green. 
And all was interfused beneath 

With an Elysian glow 
An atmosphere without a breath, 

A softer day below. 
Like one beloved the scene had lent 

To the dark water's breast, 
Its every leaf and lineament 

With more than truth exprest, 
Until an envious wind crept by, 

Like an unwelcome thought, 
Which from the mind's too faithful eye 

Blots one dear image out. 
Though thou art ever fair and kind, 

The forests ever green, 
Less oft is peace in S 's mind, 

Than calm in waters seen. 



A SONG. 



A widow bird sate mourning for her love 

Upon a wintry bough ; 
The frozen wind crept on above, 

The freezing stream below. 

There was no leaf upon the forest bare, 
No flower upon the ground, 

And little motion in the air 

Except the mill-wheel's sound. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



LINES. 

When the lamp is shattered, 
The light in the dust lies dead — 

When the cloud is scattered, 
The rainbow's glory is shed. 

When the lute is broken, 
Sweet tones are remembered not ; 

When the lips have spoken, 
Loved accents are soon forgot. 

As music and splendour 
Survive not the lamp and the lute, 

The heart's echoes render 
No song when the spirit is mute : — 

No song but sad dirges, 
Like the wind through a ruined cell, 

Or the mournful surges 
That ring the dead seaman's knell. 

When hearts have once mingled, 
Love first leaves the well-built nest ; 

The weak one is singled 
To endure what it once possest. 

Love ! who bewailest 
The frailty of all things here, 

Why choose you the frailest 
For your cradle, your home, and your bier ? 

Its passions will rock thee, 
As the storms rock the ravens on high : 

Bright reason will mock thee, 
Like the sun from a wintry sky. 

From thy nest every rafter 
Will rot, and thine eagle home 

Leave thee naked to laughter, 
When leaves fall and cold winds come. 



SONG FOR TASSO. 



TO 



The keen stars were twinkling, 
And the fair moon was rising among them. 
Dear * * * ! 
The guitar was tinkling, 
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them 
Again. 
As the moon's soft splendour 
O'er the faint cold starlight of heaven 
Is thrown, 
So your voice most tender 
To the strings without soul had then given 
Its own. 

The stars will awaken, 
Though the moon sleep a full hour later, 
To-night ; 
No leaf will be shaken 
Whilst the dews of your melody scatter 
Delight. 
Though the sound overpowers, 
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing 
A tone 
Of some world far from ours, 
Where music and moonlight and feeling 
Are one. 



SONG FOR TASSO. 

J loved — alas ! our life is love ; 

But when we cease to breathe and move, 

I do suppose love ceases too. 

I thought, but not as now I do, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore, 
Of all that men had thought before, 
And all that Nature shows, and more. 

And still I love, and still I think, 
But strangely, for my heart can drink 
The dregs of such despair, and live, 
And love ; 

And if I think, my thoughts come fast ; 
I mix the present with the past, 
And each seems uglier than the last. 

Sometimes I see before me flee 

A silver spirit's form, like thee, 

O Leonora, and I sit 

[ ] still watching it, 

Till by the grated casement's ledge 

It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge 

Breathes o'er the breezy streamlet's edge. 



THE ISLE. 



There was a little lawny islet 
By anemone and violet, 

Like mosaic, paven : 
And its roof was flowers and leaves 
Which the summer's breath enweaves, 
Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze 
Pierce the pines and tallest trees, 

Each a gem engraven. 
Girt by many an azure wave 
With which the clouds and mountains pave 

A lake's blue chasm. 






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